Auditor General Denise Hanrahan says she expects NL Health Services to pursue recovery of money that shouldn’t have been paid out for agency nursing.
Hanrahan dropped her audit on the topic yesterday, ripping the health authority for its lack of care and control of the public purse.
The province leaned on agency nurses in the midst and aftermath of the pandemic, as public RNs either burned out or checked of their careers.
Agency nurses were to be an emergency fix to fill gaps in the short term as recruitment and staffing ramped up and recovered.
Auditor General Denise Hanrahan (VOCM News)
Instead, the spending has increased—from 18 million in 2022 up to 132 million last year—some of which shouldn’t have been paid out in the first place.
Staff doing leases with private nurses at a premium, at least four million paid out for things not covered or with no invoice, and another half a million for electric vehicle rentals that had been turned down.
Hanrahan made 15 recommendations, all of which have been accepted by the health authority.
Among them is an expectation to pursue money wrongly paid out, and any instances of fraud.
“We’re giving all the information we have to the entity for them to take the appropriate action,” said Hanrahan.
‘Wildly Outrageous and Very Concerning’ says Health Minister
Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell (VOCM News)
Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell calls the Auditor General’s report “wildly outrageous and very concerning.”
The AG highlighted instances of possible fraud in contracts worth millions of dollars.
The health minster says a lack of oversight is something that has been ringing alarm bells with her department.
Howell met with officials from NLHS yesterday afternoon and outlined several directives to the health authority, including an audit of contracts and an investigation into alleged fraud.
“So one of the things that I’ve directed NLHS to do is to immediately initiate the review that was recommended by the AG to ensure that if there is any indication of fraudulent activity, that is escalated to the authorities where appropriate,” she said.
“If any disciplinary action is required on their part, be that additional training or education, we’re not ruling out dismissal.”
Health Authority Defends Use of Agency Nurses
NL Health Services CEO Pat Parfrey. (VOCM News/file)
NL Health Services is defending its use of private agency nurses at what was a critical time in the health care system.
NLHS CEO Pat Parfrey says the AG’s report captured a time when staffing vacancies were at a peak. He notes that the use of agency nurses isn’t the same today, as it was then.
He says many of the AG’s recommendations have already been implemented, including an internal audit tasked with reviewing spending by the health authority.
“We needed agency nurses as fast as possible and immediately, because people were dying,” he told reporters.
“We were coming into hospitals that were going to be closed down. People seem to have forgotten that COVID was a traumatic period.
“The nurses who stayed in those hospitals during that period of time and didn’t go into the grand resignation are heroes. And I personally think that the actions of NLHS to try and get control of a very difficult situation were pretty good.”
