TORONTO — Hospitals and long-term care homes spent nearly $1 billion last year to fill shifts with nurses and personal support workers from private staffing agencies, a Ministry of Health document estimates.
A November 2023 staffing agency update obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request shows that agency use increased from 2021-22 to 2022-23 by every metric — in hospitals and long-term care, in hours worked and in total costs.
A spokesperson for Jones wrote in a statement that the proportion of agency nurses and total hours worked by agency staff has decreased since 2017. "This is due to migration of staff away from hospitals/long term care to other sectors and agencies; and overall higher demand for staff due to the capacity that is being added in the system .""It is important to crystallize the problem we are trying to solve , and respond to the choices that staff are exercising when they choose to work for agencies ," it wrote.
When the cost of personal support workers from agencies is added, the total for the latter year becomes more than $952.8 million, the document says. Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said Ontario's growing reliance on staffing agencies means more tax dollars are ending up in the hands of agencies that are allowed to charge whatever they want.
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