The president of the P.E.I Nurses’ Union, Kim Sears, said the province should be easing its reliance on agency nurses, calling the millions of dollars spent on unbudgeted travel nurses “alarming.”

Health P.E.I. spent about $28.5 million on unbudgeted travel nurses in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to the auditor general’s report released last month. 

The report notes that the “significant expenditure” — triple what the province spent the year prior — was not a part of the provincial budget.

“We’re spending more and more money. We need to start backing off,” Sears said in an interview with CBC’s Island Morning.

Travel nurses come from outside P.E.I. and are hired by a private agency to fill vacancies on a temporary basis, usually at a higher pay rate than most salaried nurses hired by the province. Health P.E.I. currently has contracts with 10 travel nurse agencies.

Sears said while these nurses play an important role in keeping the P.E.I. health care system going, they may not have the knowledge of how local facilities work, and local nurses are often left with more work as agency nurses come and go.

“Our members also have an increased stress of feeling like on top of their own workload, they have to watch the agency nurses’ workload.”

She added that the difference in pay can leave P.E.I. nurses with some resentment toward the travel nurses they work with.

“It makes the Island nurses feel that they aren’t as important,” she said, adding that more support is needed for nurses staying long-term. 

“When you look at [it] fiscally, that money does not stay here on Prince Edward Island. Those nurses are not buying homes here, not buying cars here. It doesn’t reinvest.”

“[Health P.E.I. needs] to reinvest at least some of that money into retention of our frontline members, particularly in the 24/7 areas and long term care.” She said she is optimistic it will happen this year. 

The AG’s report notes the health authority’s savings through vacant salaried nursing positions didn’t cover the costs of those travel nurses. 

“That was what we were trying to raise,” Auditor General Darren Noonan said in an interview with CBC News. “If you know you’re going to use travel nurses, then you need to budget accordingly.”

Noonan said his office is conducting a performance audit on travel nurses, which he hopes to have finalized by late fall or early next spring.

On top of the demanding workload, Sears said safety on the job can be concerning for some of her union’s members, depending on the area they work in. 

Workplace safety remains a top concern

A survey conducted by Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions last summer, found that 88 per cent of nurses surveyed on P.E.I. said they experienced workplace harassment in the previous year, with 36 per cent of those members saying they experienced five or more incidents in that time frame.

“We need AI weapon detectors, we need panic buttons, we need bulletproof glass. And that’s not just for the nurses, that’s for Islanders that are going into those facilities and using them as well,“ Sears said. 

Nova Scotia began installing artificial-intelligence-powered weapon detectors in hospitals across the province last year.

While these are not yet in use on P.E.I., Sears said testing has been done. 

“I know it’s coming, but it just isn’t fast enough.”