Presenting the draft law to limit the use of private agencies in the National Assembly, Minister Christian Dubé explained that this law also gives the government the power, again by regulation, to determine the period during which an agency can use the services of a staff recruitment agency or freelance work.
“Regulations may vary by category of social health organization, region or area. »
— A quote from Christian Dubé, Quebec Minister of Health
Christian Dubé will speak to the media at 11am to provide more details on this bill.
Exodus of health workers
Faced with a brain drain of healthcare workers leaving the public grid due to workloads, difficult schedules and mandatory overtime – an exceptional measure introduced as a management model – the Quebec government found healthcare facilities dependent on private agencies that they provided with the staff necessary to maintain the care.
A situation that forces the government to spend large sums to ensure the functioning of the public network, torpedoed by understaffing and a bureaucracy bending under its own weight.
Several private agencies now regularly charge $100 an hour, and sometimes more, for a nurse’s services. This is clearly more than what public network employees cost, more and more of whom are leaving the network to join the same agencies in search of better working conditions.
According to an analysis of CISSS and CIUSSS data by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), affiliated with the FTQ, the Quebec government had to pay an additional $3 billion to private employment agencies between 2016 and 2022 to meet staffing needs in the US to cover health network.
The Legault government is aware of the problem and is not the first time it has addressed the increasing use of placement agencies in the public health network.
In October 2021, Minister Dubé had specifically committed the Greater Montreal Health Network and Capitale-Nationale entities to put in place mechanisms to reduce the use of private recruitment agencies to meet their staffing needs. The rate granted to agency nurses was also capped at $72 per hour through December 31, 2022.