Placement Agencies | Up to $100 per hour for a nurse

(Quebec) While the health network is snapping up workers, employment agencies are violating ministerial decrees by charging private seniors’ accommodation up to 30% more for caregivers. Others add all kinds of bonuses and fees to circumvent the rules in place, learned The Press. Residences deplore “being taken hostage”.

Fanny Levesque
The Press

Private seniors’ residences (RPA) and private CHSLDs find themselves on a tightrope in the face of the Omicron tsunami, which sidelined dozens of their employees and caused numerous outbreaks. And agencies would weigh very heavily on the pencil to help them out, according to around twenty invoices compiled by The Press.

The Ministry of Health and Social Services has also confirmed that it “was recently informed that certain agencies would have charged higher rates than those provided for in the ministerial decrees”. These practices are “subject to audits”, we said by email, without further comment.

According to our information, companies sometimes charge up to $100 per hour for the services of a “regular rate” nurse. An offer of service drawn up at the beginning of the month shows that an agency in Greater Montreal is asking for up to $800 per nurse’s shift, ie for seven to eight hours.

This is at least $25 more than what is provided for in the ministerial decree which sets the limit at $74.36 per hour for the use of clinical nurses.

Quebec, however, tightened the screws on employment agencies at the very beginning of the pandemic when the prices for independent labor had exploded in certain circles. At the end of the first wave, in May 2020, the Legault government set ceiling prices to avoid abuses in the midst of a health crisis.

These tariffs were renewed in a new order in March 2021.

However, invoices and offers of services from at least 15 agencies across Quebec demonstrate that these practices have never really ceased with private residences.

In September, a firm in the Laurentians charged a rate of $65 per hour for a nursing assistant.

This is more than 35% more than the maximum rate established by Quebec, which is $47.65. Other agencies set rates of $50 to $57 per hour for a nursing assistant. The same goes for beneficiary attendant services, which can cost up to $45 per hour, while the maximum amount is $35.45 per hour.

Our research also shows that agencies use different means to inflate their prices by adding “management fees” and “COVID bonuses”. We are advised, for example, that a premium of $6 per hour will be added to the remuneration of their employees in the event of an outbreak.

The independent workforce is not targeted by the many bonuses paid by the Legault government in the context of the health crisis. Despite this, in some cases, agencies choose to charge premiums similar to those offered to public sector employees, such as 8% for nursing assistants.

We are also increasing the allowance allocated to mileage, for example. The Press did not name the companies at fault to protect accommodation resources for seniors who fear reprisals.

“Groundhog Day”

These practices do not surprise the president of the Quebec Regrouping of residences for seniors, Marc Fortin, who confirms that there is currently an escalation for the workforce.

“We felt it was coming with the last wave, we saw it in a region here and there, but it spread … a bit like the virus, he says in an interview. The government will have to take action to regulate these practices. »

The story is similar in private CHSLDs. “It’s Groundhog Day; nothing has changed,” denounces Paul Arbec, president of the Association of Private Long-Term Institutions of Quebec.

The two associations deplore the uncomfortable posture of their members in the face of the situation. They are found between the tree and the bark. Often their only option is to pay the fees to avoid a disruption of services, which would impact the care provided to seniors.

The increase in costs will not be reflected in the cost of rent, but inevitably in the care bill for a resident, specifies Mr. Fortin. Rental leases usually include a schedule for the cost of health care required by the tenant. The resident may have access to various financial benefits, such as tax credits, to pay for these expenses.

“If agencies want to change [les mesures de l’arrêté], that they negotiate with the government instead of taking us hostage,” denounces Mr. Fortin, whose organization has 800 members and some 100,000 rental units. According to him, both small and large RPAs deal with this kind of situation.

“illegal” practices

According to the Association of Private Companies of Caregivers of Quebec, the practices described by The Press are “completely illegal”.

“There is nothing that surprises me in that,” lamented its president, Hélène Gravel. “There will always be people willing to pay for something. Are people taking advantage of it? Well yes,” she continues.

M^me Gravel, whose association brings together about fifteen agencies, affirms on the other hand that private residences have also contacted the placement firms by offering them that we “charge them more expensively” to ensure that they have manpower. of labor in the context of the serious shortage.

The association has “made its hobbyhorse” better supervision of the use of placement agencies from the start of the pandemic, recalls the president. Firms sprouted like mushrooms in the spring of 2020. Moreover, nearly half of the agencies in question in this report were registered with the Registraire des entreprises after March 2020. The others remain relatively recent with founding dates from 2013 to 2019.