The contracts between the province’s health authorities and 16 for-profit companies detail massive markups for the provision of health-care workers – from nurses to X-ray technologists to occupational therapists – who are now propping up the faltering public system. Sources tell CTV News anywhere from a quarter to nearly all the staff in a hospital operating room or care home ward, for example, are there on a short-term contract.

Many of them have left the public system and union pensions to make much higher hourly rates while retaining the ability to choose when and where to work. The agency hires them as temp workers, taking a big slice of the pie for doing so.

For example, a unionized, health authority worker with a designation as a registered nurse in their first 10 years on the job makes roughly $45 as their base hourly wage. A recent posting from a prominent staffing agency that runs travelnurse.ca posted a week-long request for a surgical nurse in the Lower Mainland offering $52.50 per hour, with “bonus incentives” and unspecified benefits.