TORONTO — Ontario is proposing to extend transparency and accountability round well being staffing companies, as hospitals and long-term care houses spend about $1 billion a 12 months to fill shifts with momentary staff at charges far greater than full-time employees are paid.
It is a optimistic — if small — step towards regulating or decreasing the charges of companies that cost double and even triple the charges of employees nurses and private help staff, some critics and advocates hope.
Well being Minister Sylvia Jones launched laws earlier this month that may require health-care staffing companies to report billing or pay price data to her, and would enable the minister to publish a few of that data.
“It is going to enable us to extra simply measure and see whether or not we’re seeing stabilization, rising use, lowering use, and the place,” Jones mentioned.
She wouldn’t, nevertheless, decide to treating the gathering of that data as a primary step towards some type of regulation of the sector, which each hospitals and long-term care operators have lengthy urged.
Lisa Levin, CEO of AdvantAge Ontario, representing the province’s non-profit long-term-care houses, mentioned the laws marks an vital begin to addressing the difficulty.
“I feel it is a good step to have transparency in what momentary companies are charging, however we do additionally want to carry them to account in order that they are not in a position to value gouge,” she mentioned.
“Momentary companies are a crucial a part of our system, and I help them wholeheartedly. I do not assume that we are able to do away with momentary companies. They, in actual fact, saved lives in the course of the pandemic and had been indispensable … however there are a couple of that make the most of the system, and we have to have stronger regulation to cease that from taking place.”
A report final 12 months by Ontario’s auditor basic famous that the province doesn’t cap the charges for-profit staffing companies can cost, and whereas the typical pay for a registered nurse instantly employed by a long-term care dwelling was $40.15 an hour, the typical hourly company price was $97.33.
There may be additionally vital variation inside the identical classifications, the report discovered, with the hourly price for a registered nurse at a staffing company starting from $55 an hour to $139.65 an hour.
A November 2023 staffing company replace beforehand obtained by The Canadian Press by a freedom-of-information request reveals that hospitals and long-term care houses had been projected to spend about $600 million on company nurses in 2022-23, a 63-per-cent enhance over the prior 12 months.
When the price of private help staff from companies is added, the entire for the latter 12 months grew to become greater than $952.8 million, the doc mentioned.
Anthony Dale, president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Affiliation, mentioned hospitals have been working carefully with the federal government to cut back reliance on company nursing.
“The Ontario Hospital Affiliation is happy to see the federal government transfer ahead with this vital first step in the direction of offering larger transparency and accountability,” he wrote in a press release.
“The requirement to share this data might assist encourage the companies to cut back their charges and also will inform future coverage choices on this matter.”
NDP well being critic France Gelinas sees that part of the invoice as largely optimistic, although doing the naked minimal to handle the issue, and he or she famous that a variety of the small print are to be sorted out later.
“I would say it’s the tiny, weeny little step that they had no choice but to make, and they made it as small as possible, with all of it left to regulation,” she mentioned.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Dec. 20, 2024.
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
