SHARE
Nurses Deserve Better and So Do You
June 26, 2025
I was stunned when I read the Auditor General’s report on agency nurse contracts. Then I was angry.
This report has shaken the public’s confidence, and it has destroyed what little confidence we had left in the leadership of Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services (NLHS). Laws were ignored. Processes were bypassed. Public money flowed freely with little to no oversight. And the result? A public health care system in crisis and a nursing workforce that feels abandoned.
But let’s be clear: this report didn’t just surprise us. It confirmed what we’ve been saying all along. Nurses have been raising alarm bells for more than a year about skyrocketing agency nurse spending, broken procurement practices, and the loss of stability in our public system. Now, for the first time, we have independent verification. The Auditor General’s findings validate the concerns of nurses. They echo the calls we’ve made in media, in meetings, and in memos – calls that were often ignored.
How did we get here?
How did it become acceptable to pay private agency nurses more than four times what it costs to employ a registered nurse in the public system—while patients continue to wait in ERs, hallways, and at home? How did we allow over $4 million in ineligible or unsupported expenses to go unquestioned? Why were RNs told there was no money to fill full-time, permanent positions, when the health authority was forking out $400,000 per year for a single agency nurse?
We just graduated nearly 300 new nurses. NLHS says it hired 90% of them. What they didn’t say is they hired most into temporary jobs while continuing to write massive cheques to out-of-province agencies. Imagine if, instead, we had used those dollars to hire every one of those new grads into permanent, full-time positions. Imagine what it would mean to have four more RNs for every one agency nurse.
But NLHS made a choice. And yes, it was a choice. They chose private profit over public stability. They chose convenience over consultation. And now, they’re telling us to trust them to fix it?
Nurses aren’t buying it. And the public shouldn’t either.
To the people of this province: We know you value our nurses. We know you’re tired of waiting for care and frustrated by a system that isn’t working. We feel it too. Because when
the system fails you, it fails us. We’re on the front lines of every patient’s journey but decision-makers are treating us as if we’re disposable.
To our members: Your union hears you. We see your exhaustion. Your anger. Your hurt. And we are fighting back. We are calling for consequences. For legal investigations. For leadership that is held accountable not rewarded with more authority. We are demanding that trust be rebuilt with transparency, respect, and action.
This is not just a budget issue. This is an ethics issue. A leadership issue. A justice issue. Someone must answer for the mismanagement exposed in this report and the harm it has caused to both patients and the nurses who care for them.
We deserve better. And so do you.
