The president and CEO of Canadian health organization Vitalité Health Network agrees private agency nursing contracts should be questioned but says they were a necessary measure that has saved lives.

Dr. France Desrosiers addressed the organization’s use of the costly contracts to ensure continuous patient care, stating the health authority was “at a crossroads” by the summer of 2022 with level of care hours per patient at a critical point and confirmed it will be winter 2026 before Vitalité will be able to completely phase out the need for these contract nurses.

“Although costly, it remains a vital ethical decision for our Network, whose purpose is to foster the health of our patients and communities, today and tomorrow,” Desrosiers wrote in a message on the organization’s website.

Desrosiers defended the contracts following scrutiny sparked by a recent Globe and Mail investigation that found New Brunswick health authorities have spent millions on travel nursing contracts. For example, it revealed Vitalité Health Network spent $306 per hour on travel nurses, far more than the $37 to $47 nurses get paid in New Brunswick, CTV News reported.

Desrosiers cited the critical situation faced by Vitalité Health Network in 2022, which prompted the utilization of agency staff to prevent imminent emergency department and facility closures.

“We had our backs against the wall, and only a very limited number of agencies were able to provide the French or bilingual resources needed, in a timely manner, to maintain the services we provide,” she wrote.

Desrosiers noted that after a thorough review of the risks to the health and safety of patients and healthcare workers and with the green light from the Department of Health, agency staff, including Canadian Health Labs staff, began working at Vitalité Health Network.

“In retrospect, we need only think of the hundreds of lives that have been saved thanks to the support of agency staff and our own staff in maintaining dialysis treatment, emergency departments and other essential services, for example, to confirm that this decision was the right one. These patients, they have names … they are our family members, our neighbors, our loved ones.”

However, Desrosiers agrees agency staff is not a perfect solution and acknowledged concerns regarding salary inequities among nursing staff in the public and private sectors. She also said Vitalité Health Network has undertaken several transformation projects and intensive recruitment initiatives, noting a surplus of new hires since 2022. This progress paves the way for a gradual reduction in agency services, with plans to phase them out entirely by winter 2026.