Staffing shortfalls across the health system mean hospitals are relying more and more on private agencies to help fill the gap. Markham Stouffville Hospital emergency department RN Basil Byfield knows firsthand that it’s been tough to retain staff. During his 30-year career in emergency nursing, Byfield says that he has seen the downside of this stop-gap solution, and in particular, the downside of a divided workforce. On the issue of wage parity – agency nurses can sometimes earn more than double what staff nurses earn – he notes: “It can be demoralizing for regular staff having to do the same job but getting less pay.” RN Kian Johnson says she originally picked up shifts through an agency to supplement her full-time hospital job. She is now studying to become a nurse practitioner and is exclusively working for an agency. The impetus, she says, was the flexibility it allowed, “…as well as the financial increase.” Since December 2020, RNAO has raised the alarm about the nursing crisis that will compromise patient safety and the functioning of our health system. We are now deep in that crisis, and this trend toward more agency nurses is only exacerbating the issues. “I feel like we’re not respected in the sense that our needs are not being met,” Kian says. (CBC The National, May 12). Read below for more about how members of RNAO’s Middlesex Elgin chapter are continuing to raise alarm bells on the wage parity issue with MPPs in their own community.