ST. JOHN'S - A new audit of Newfoundland and Labrador's contracts with private travel nurse agencies has flagged overpayments by the provincial health authority, questionable invoices and possible fraud.
The report released Wednesday by auditor general Denise Hanrahan concluded that the government spent millions of dollars without proper justification, and it needed to overhaul how it hires and pays the companies.
The audit said the health authority used emergency exemptions to sign contracts with nursing agencies and skirted its own rules for procurement. It also found health authority staff earned rental income from travel nurses.
Hanrahan said the province spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars on agency nurses from 2022 to 2024. By March, the health authority was paying more than $400,000 a year for each travel nurse, which is more than triple the salary of nurses working for the province.
"In my opinion, it shows a complete lack of respect for public funds," Hanrahan told reporters in St. John's, N.L. "I don't think I can ever defend somebody paying out public money when it didn't need to be paid out."
The provincial Health Department has also asked the health authority to report any findings of fraud "to the appropriate authorities," it said in a news release Wednesday.
As in the rest of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador is struggling with a shortage of nurses, and health officials have said travel nurses are a "necessary evil." In May 2024, the provincial health authority — Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services — vowed to reduce the number of private health-care staff working in its facilities from roughly 340 to 60 by April 2026.
Hanrahan's report said there were 278 agency nurses still employed in the province in December 2024, representing roughly six per cent of the total nursing workforce. Spending on travel nurses grew from $19.6 million in 2022 to $137 million in 2024, it said.
One unnamed agency — called Agency A in the audit — was paid more than $545,000 for nurses to use electric vehicles from a company affiliated with the agency, despite health officials rejecting its initial proposal to use the cars.
The same agency billed the health authority more than $91,000 for 81 weeks of electric vehicle rentals for nurses who were not in the province, the audit said.
"There were strong indications of potential billing fraud by Agency A for electric vehicle rentals," the document said.
Hanrahan has asked the health authority to audit everything it has paid to Agency A since April 2022, and try to reclaim anything paid "in error."
She and her team analyzed roughly $10 million worth of invoices from 11 different travel nurse agencies from Jan. 1, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2024. They found payments totalling almost $4 million for ineligible expenses or invoices for which there was no supporting documentation, such as time sheets detailing the nurses' working hours.
Forty-nine health authority staff members earned rental income from travel nurses at nearly double the market value, violating provincial conflict of interest legislation, the report said. In total, these employees collected almost $1.9 million in rent between 2022 and 2024. One was a "director involved in the recruitment of agency nurses," and they collected more than $53,000 from renting to travel nurses between April 2022 and September 2024, the report said.
One agency charged $10,212 for a nurse to spend 48 nights at a hotel in Gander, N.L., and another charged $5,467 for a one-month stay in a suite in Corner Brook, the audit said. In another case, the health authority paid $689 for the spouse of a travel nurse to spend two nights at a Winnipeg hotel.
Hanrahan found no evidence that the province has assessed how many nurses it needs, or set targets for vacancy reductions.
Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services said it has accepted all 15 of Hanrahan's recommendations and vowed to strengthen its oversight and management of travel nurse agencies.
This report by ºÃÉ«tvwas first published June 25, 2025.
