Starting next week, Quebec will impose a single price scale on private agencies throughout the health network. While independent clinical nurses have already received $150 per hour, the new maximum hourly rate will be $74.
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Our Parliamentary Office has learned that the immense single contract to meet the needs of hospitals and CHSLDs will finally be able to move forward, after having been unsuccessfully contested before the Public Procurement Authority (AMP) by the employment agencies of staff.
Last fall, the Minister of Health Christian Dubé confided in an interview to Newspaper want to save nearly $1 billion annually thanks to the gradual end to the use of independent nurses and attendants within four years.
Quebec had then just announced that its price schedule would apply to all new contracts. From now on, even agreements negotiated in the past will have to respect the hourly rates imposed by Quebec (see the box below).
Mammoth contract
This is because in recent months, Quebec has grouped all of the needs for hospitals and CHSLDs under a single mammoth contract which will now be managed by the Government Acquisition Center (CAG).
This replaces the thousands of agreements signed over the years by health establishments, which negotiated their prices independently.
These contracts have either expired or cancellation clauses have been invoked to put an end to them.
Everything was settled last Friday. Establishments will therefore have one week to comply.
Wean the network
The imposition of a fee schedule is a first step in Minister Dubé’s plan to wean the health network from recourse to private agencies for personnel, which is costly to taxpayers.
From next fall, establishments located in urban areas will no longer be able to use it, then the ban will extend to medium-sized cities the following year, before applying everywhere in the country from the fall 2026.
The new mammoth contract will apply by then. Last January, when private agencies challenged it before the AMP, Radio-Canada wrote that the order represents a sum of approximately $1 billion for 16 million hours of work to be carried out.
A windfall for the private sector?
At the Association of Private Healthcare Personnel Companies of Quebec, we express concern about certain clauses of the new contract.
For example, an agency can be imposed a penalty if its employee cancels a shift, says the president of the association, Patrice Lapointe.
In addition, the client could now demand that a nurse loaned by the agency work overtime, without increasing their hourly rate accordingly, adds Mr. Lapointe.
“The government welcomes the potential loss of thousands of workers in the public network. During this time, pharmacists and doctors have the right to act in both the public and private sectors. This constitutes discrimination,” says the industry representative.
According to him, the real winners will be the private clinics, which will benefit from the influx of employees who do not wish to return to the public network.
In Minister Dubé’s office, it is rather argued that the strategy is bearing fruit: around 1,000 agency employees have been rehired in the public network in recent months.
Some examples of the rates imposed
- Nurse: $71.87
- Specialized nurse: $74.36
- Respiratory therapist: $80.00
- Auxiliary nurse: $47.65
- Beneficiary attendant: $41.96