On Thursday Registered Nurses’ Union President Yvette Coffey took aim at [Newfoundland and Labrador] Premier John Hogan, who has yet to publicly address the healthcare scandal, which [Auditor General] Hanrahan says has resulted in the province paying upward of $400,000 on average per agency nurse over the past couple of years.

NL Health Services, the province’s health authority, spent $241-million on agency nurses between 2022 and 2024, according to the auditor general. That’s up to four times the salary of local registered nurses, PC leader Tony Wakeham has argued. “Public nurses were denied benefits, pushed into arbitration over overtime, and treated as an afterthought,” Wakeham said last week. “The Premier, who once served as both Minister of Health and Attorney General, has remained absent and silent, even as the AG pointed to potential criminality and conflict of interest.”