New Brunswick’s francophone health authority has sent auditors to the Toronto offices of its main supplier of temporary workers as part of a year-long attempt to recover costs from a company that it blames for causing its $100-million deficit, a legislative committee heard Thursday.
Vitalité chief executive officer France Desrosiers also disclosed that Vitalité entered into three contracts with CHL worth a maximum value of $158-million after receiving a “verbal green light” from Health Department deputy minister Eric Beaulieu. Vitalité and the province now disagree on whether that approval applied to all three contracts and whether it meant extra funding.
Mr. Martin’s audit found that between 2022 and this year the province’s health authorities paid $173-million to private agencies to supply temporary out-of-province orderlies and nurses, also known as travel nurses. Invoices obtained by The Globe and Mail show that CHL billed Vitalité the equivalent of $219 a night to lodge each nurse, although many were billeted in apartments owned by companies affiliated with CHL chief executive Bill Hennessey.
Dr. Desrosiers told the committee that at one point Vitalité refused to reimburse CHL without proper receipts. She said the company then sent a lawyer’s letter complaining about late payments. Dr. Desrosiers said Vitalité signed with CHL because it was the only company that could supply bilingual nurses on short notice. Her network was so severely short-staffed that emergency and dialysis services were threatened.