Public system spent at least $1.5-billion on private nurses last year, study finds

Canadian hospitals and nursing homes paid at least $1.5-billion in the past fiscal year – a six-fold increase since 2020 – to for-profit staffing agencies, according to a new report that lays bare the scale of a staffing crisis inside the public-health care system.Since the pandemic hit, health facilities in many parts of the country have come to rely on companies that charge premium prices to supply temporary nurses when facilities can’t find enough permanent workers.