Service N.B. minister not given travel nurse contract details before signing exemption – New Brunswick [Video]

Service New Brunswick Minister Mary Wilson said she wasn’t given details of travel nurse contracts before signing a pair of ministerial exemptions allowing the Department of Social Development to skip the tendering process and enter into two agreements with travel nurse agencies.

“Service New Brunswick isn’t responsible to work on the contract, review the contract. Our job is just to exercise that exemption by not having it put out to tender,” she said in an interview.

Wilson signed both exemptions in early 2022, allowing the contracts to be signed to provide nurses in long-term care facilities. The Department of Social Development ultimately paid $3 million, the bulk of which went to Canadian Health Labs (CHL), which later signed a lucrative, ongoing deal with Vitalité.

The contracts have been criticized by the auditor general, who found that the two contracts were written by the companies and did not reflect “best practices …