Home / Health / Costly Travel Nurses Fill Campbellton ER Gaps
Costly Travel Nurses Fill Campbellton ER Gaps
7 Nov
Summary
- Travel nurses are being used to staff Campbellton ER amid recruitment delays.
- Politicians are questioning the reliance on expensive travel nurses.
- Vitalité Health Network needs travel nurses for at least six more months.
Vitalité Health Network is currently utilizing travel nurses to maintain emergency room services at Campbellton Regional Hospital. This decision has sparked discontent among politicians who advocate for an end to the expensive reliance on temporary staff.
Health Minister John Dornan expressed his preference for hospitals to be staffed without travel nurses, a practice he associated with the COVID-19 crisis. Vitalité Health stated that new recruits require several more weeks of advanced critical care training and supervision before they can fully assume their duties in the emergency department.
Brad Mann, representing the Restigouche Regional Service Commission, indicated that Vitalité expects to require travel nurses for an additional six months. He confirmed the presence of three travel nurses currently in Campbellton. Despite the province's earlier directive to stop involuntary deployments of New Brunswick nurses, Vitalité maintains that travel nurses are not forbidden.
Vitalité did not inform the province or local representatives about their decision to contract a travel nurse agency. Nevertheless, Mann acknowledged the necessity of keeping the ER open, even if employing travel nurses is the only immediate solution. The exact cost of these travel nurses has not been disclosed by Vitalité.
