Tony Wakeham asks, "Why are we paying agency nurses $300 an hour when experienced local professionals are ready and willing to help? It defies common sense and is a blatant misuse of taxpayers’ dollars.”
The leader of the provincial opposition is calling out government’s reliance on expensive private agency nurses while qualified local nurses are being ignored…..and the example Tony Wakeham is using is from the west coast. In the wake of the Auditor General’s damning report that uncovered $241 million in mismanagement and potential fraud, Wakeham shared a new case involving a casual Nurse Practitioner from the west coast who offered to work but was rejected. That same nurse has since been contacted by a private agency to cover the very shifts they were previously turned down for. Wakeham says “Why are we paying agency nurses $300 an hour when experienced local professionals are ready and willing to help? It defies common sense and is a blatant misuse of taxpayers’ dollars.” The Auditor General’s found that 72 nurses were laid off, only to have their positions filled by agency nurses—at four times the cost. Wakeham says “Public money was used to buy air fryers, milk frothers, luxury apartments, and even electric car rentals.”
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