FREDERICTON — New Brunswick Health Minister Bruce Fitch says private companies took advantage of the province by billing "exorbitant" charges for temporary nurses brought in to help a strained health network. "Well, predator pricing — I don't know what you want to call it — when somebody, you know, takes advantage of a dire situation," Fitch told reporters Wednesday at the legislature. "I think there's some rules of business engagement that should be followed.
But the price point was exorbitant." His comments came in reaction to a report Tuesday by auditor general Paul Martin, who concluded two provincial health authorities and a government department failed to properly monitor the contracts awarded for the so-called travel nurses. Martin said health authorities and the government signed almost $174 million in contracts between Jan.
1, 2022, and Feb. 29, 2024, and did not receive value for their money. The francophone Vitalité Health Network was the biggest spender, paying more than $123 million on travel nurses over the two years.
Available information showed the network paid $98 million of that to an Ontario-based contractor, Canadian Health Labs, which Martin's report said had the "highest pricing structure." Vitalité refused to give Martin's office access to its internal audits of the contracts. Fitch said the Health Department is looking at whether the health authority should be taken to court to force it to hand over the audit reports.
Neither Canadian Health .
