PEI health minister says Maritime province will create public travel nurse agency
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The PEI government says it is working with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to reduce their reliance on travel nurses.
Health Minister Cory Deagle said the Maritimes’ deputy minister and health officials are developing a plan for a regional public travel-nurse agency, aimed at moving away from expensive private contracts.
“I don’t think any province can afford to pay such a high price. Right now, we have no other choice, we don’t have enough nurses to fill the positions,” Deagle told reporters Thursday.
“So we need them but we have to find a way to manage the costs … and create our own entity that will be owned by the provinces. And if nurses want to travel that’s fine – but they will be part of that and we won’t use private companies.”
Relying on travel nurses also creates stress on the front lines because they are paid far more than the staff nurses who work with them, she said. The province spent approximately $28.5 million On traveling nurses in the financial year 2024-25.
Other areas have taken steps to reduce reliance on private nursing agencies. In Quebec, this is due to legislation adopted in 2023 aimed at ending reliance on agencies Thousands of health care workers are flocking to the public system. Recently, the New Brunswick government introduced Law to void multimillion-dollar contract with a travel-nurse staffing agency.
Deagle said it’s too early to say how the model will work, but it would require all three provinces to agree to stop using private nursing agencies.
“I think the nurses will say, ‘Okay, well, there’s no longer that opportunity that I can work for, maybe sometimes the pay is almost double, so I have to work in the public system, or if I want to move around in the Maritimes, I can work within this Maritime unit,” he said.
“The idea is to encourage people to work in the public system and not for private agencies, which cost the government a huge amount of money.”
She said provinces will work to standardize licensing so nurses can move more easily between jurisdictions, such as how Atlantic Physician Register It allows doctors to practice in the four Atlantic provinces without additional licensing requirements.
As part of the proposed maritime unit, standard practices and wages across the sector will also need to be aligned, Deagle said.
While the idea is still in its early stages and no timeline has been set, Deagle said PEI’s health-care system will rely on travel nurses in the current fiscal year.
“Because of over-capacity issues, I think we’re going to have to spend more money on travel nurses,” she said.
Demand is being driven by seasonal pressures such as summer employee holidays and gaps in the system, Deagle said.
He pointed to the intensive care unit at Prince County Hospital, which relies heavily on travel nurses because of the specialized skills and training required. Deagle said it’s difficult to recruit for those positions, forcing the system to turn to agency workers.
he added this As more beds are added to long-term care homes across the provinceThe demand for agency nurses may also increase. Many long-term care facilities, especially in rural areas, rely on agency nurses to stay afloat.
