Travel nurses filling gaps in rural hospitals say they haven’t been paid for months

A group of travel nurses say they haven't been paid in months and that the agency that employs them has gone "radio silent."

"We just would like to get paid for work," said Shalu, a travel nurse, said in an interview with CBC.

Shalu, who uses only one name, is an emergency room nurse currently contracted to work at the Parkland Integrated Health Centre in Shellbrook, Sask. As a travel nurse, she takes temporary contracts through agencies to fill staffing shortages at health-care facilities across Canada. 

She said she started with EZCare, an Ontario-based staffing agency, on April 18 for a three-month contract, which she later renewed until the end of October. She had previously worked through the agency in 2024 without problems, except occasional pay delays, she said. 

Shalu said she and around 20 other nurses hired through EZ Care across Canada received a letter from the agency around the end of July, warning of pay delays because of an "agency transition."

Nothing followed that letter, she said. A new company named in the letter never took over and the agency stopped paying her and around 25 other nurses, she said.

She said she's owed about $50,000 for around seven weeks of work and living expenses, from June 14 to Aug. 4, that would have been covered by the contract. CBC News reviewed bank statements that show she has not been paid.

Shalu and Nagaga say EZ Care, which is based out of Ontario, has not paid them for months. (EZ Care website)

"It is depressing some days. It hits me that I've worked for two months, and for nothing," she said.

CBC tried to reach EZ Care by phone and email but has not heard back.

'It is not fair': travel nurse

SHA spent $75.8 million on travel nurses in 2024-2025, according to Saskatchewan's provincial auditor's report this year. 

Shalu says she is paid $86/hour, with time and a half for overtime, along with $40 per diem and $75/day for travel expenses.

"I'm feeling frustrated. There's nurses with families, cars and rent and accommodation to pay for," she said.

The group of unpaid nurses has been trying to contact the company, its owner, labour lawyers and the provincial government, but have had no success, Shalu said.

"It seems like all the doors are closed," she said.

The nurses stopped working temporarily after they realized they weren't getting paid. Shalu said that created staffing issues for the hospital and more burnout for nurses who were working without a fully staffed ER.

In a statement, the Saskatchewan Health Authority said it is aware of "payroll issues" between EZ Care and some of its nurses, but "cannot comment nor intervene in any contractual obligations between another employer and its contractors."

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"Patient care has not been impacted," SHA said. 

The health authority said it hired EZ Care through an open request-for-proposals process, and that it is no longer requesting new contracts through the agency.

Esther Nagaga, another travel nurse working at the same hospital in Shellbrook, said she's missing two weeks of pay, worth around $20,000. Nagaga said she is paid $85/hour plus time and a half for overtime, along with a $40 per diem and $75/day for travel expenses. 

"It's a long 12-hour shift with lots of hard work. Sometimes you're doing it alone. You're doing a lot of the work alone. So not getting compensated for it is very, it is not fair," Nagaga said.

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She reached out to the agency and got "radio silence," she said.

"I didn't know how I'm going to pay my next month's bills because it's Canada. We live paycheque to paycheque," she said. "We're doing the jobs we do because we need that extra money and we're taking time away from families."

Nagaga said hospital services and care delivered to patients were adversely affected because she and two other nurses, including Shalu, had stopped working at the facility after they found out they wouldn't be paid.

"The facility would have been impacted greatly because most of the time it was contract nurses that were working at that time," she said. "So that left the unit very short-staffed."

Independent contractors

Shalu said travel nurses are typically hired as independent contractors, not employees. She said labour lawyers they contacted told them that limits their options.

David Camfield, a professor of labour studies and sociology at the University of Manitoba, said the nurses' situation raises questions about whether they should have been classified as "contractors" and the deeper issues with the health system's reliance on agencies.

"There's a big difference between someone who's a genuinely independent contractor … and someone who's been classified as an independent contractor, but whose actual relationship to the employer is really one of an employee," he said in an interview.

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Camfield described SHA's travel nurse situation as a "triangular relationship." On paper, the agency is the employer paying the nurses. Day to day, though, the nurses are managed by Saskatchewan Health Authority staff, which makes the SHA the de facto employer, he said.

He said the bigger problem is the public health-care system's reliance on agencies to fill vacancies. That leaves facilities without stable, permanent staff, which he said is bad for everyone who uses public health care.

"We really need to be asking questions about why is the health-care system being starved of the necessary resources that would be needed to provide nurses with stable, high-quality jobs," he said.

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"I think it would be a mistake to let either of them off the hook here."

The nurses said they asked the SHA to withhold payment to EZ Care and pay them directly, but that SHA refused because its contract was with the agency, not the nurses.

Shalu and Nagaga are back at work now, working through a different agency. They hoping the SHA can still help them get paid for the work they did.