FREDERICTON — The head of New Brunswick's francophone Vitalité Health Network launched a spirited defence Thursday of the organization's spending on travel nurse contracts. Dr. France Desrosiers told a legislature committee the decision to contract private firms to provide temporary nurses, also known as travel nurses, was a matter of "saving human lives by maintaining essential services.
" In the second half of 2022, the situation became critical with 100 beds already closed down across the network and dialysis patients getting three hours of treatment when they normally would get four. "It was high pressure," she said. "It was one minute to midnight.
" After the death of a patient in a Fredericton hospital emergency room in July 2022, Desrosiers said she was "mandated" to fix the situation at the francophone health network. In a meeting with deputy health minister Eric Beaulieu, she was told she had the "green light" to hire travel nurses to ease the pressure, even though it could cost "tens of millions of dollars," she told the committee. She said she went ahead with the contracts only after this meeting.
The province's auditor general singled out the spending in a June 4 report, finding that between Jan. 1, 2022, and Feb. 29, 2024, Vitalité paid more than $123 million for travel nurses — including $98 million to Ontario-based agency Canadian Health Labs.
The prices charged by Canadian Health Labs under its contract with Vitalité, which continues until February 202.