N.L. watchdog flagged ‘potential billing fraud’ for journey nurse EV leases. We have the invoices

A medical staffing company charged taxpayers for a journey nurse to be supplied with an electrical car rental, whereas concurrently billing for a similar nurse to take taxis, lease a separate automobile, and fly out of the province.

That’s in keeping with an evaluation of invoices submitted by the company and obtained by CBC Investigates.

Canadian Health Labs (CHL) charged for that journey nurse in central Newfoundland to make use of the electrical car over a interval of 175 consecutive days in 2023.

The EV rental got here from an affiliated firm, at a price of $1,127 per week. 

WATCH | The CBC’s Rob Antle has new particulars on previous billings by a journey nurse company:

Concerns about electrical car fees by journey nurse firm paid out by well being authority

Last yr, N.L.’s auditor basic flagged “strong indications of potential billing fraud” associated to claims filed by the company. Now a CBC evaluation of a whole lot of pages of invoices additionally raises questions.

The data present that, throughout the identical timeframe, Canadian Health Labs submitted different transportation-related claims within the identify of the identical nurse.

Those embrace a flight out of the province for 2 weeks; taxis to and from the hospital in Gander throughout a span of 29 days; and a separate automobile rental from Hertz costing $2,161 for 2 weeks.

It’s not clear why all these claims had been filed within the identify of the identical journey nurse — and whether or not a number of bills like these had been permitted beneath the company’s contract with the well being authority.

Even in the event that they had been in some way permitted, the auditor basic wrote that well being authority employees signed off on the invoices with out having seen the contract — elevating questions in regards to the validity of these billings.

Meanwhile, data present that wasn’t the one time overlapping fees appear to have occurred.

EV rental fees within the names of at the very least 5 different nurses continued after taxpayers had been billed for airline tickets to fly them out of the province.

CBC Investigates despatched CHL an in depth electronic mail that outlined the findings of this story.

In response, the corporate despatched this assertion: “We have completed a thorough internal review of the matters referenced and are satisfied that NLHS was billed accurately for services provided.”

AG flagged ‘strong indications of potential billing fraud’

CBC Investigates obtained, by means of entry to info, roughly 600 pages of billing data submitted by CHL to the native well being authority in 2023.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services initially refused to reveal the names of the nurses, earlier than reversing course final fall after a grievance to the knowledge commissioner.

None of the nurses in query replied to messages or may very well be reached by CBC Investigates.

Last June, Newfoundland and Labrador’s auditor basic issued a important report that discovered “strong indications of potential billing fraud” in relation to these electrical car leases. 

At the time, the staffing firm in query was recognized solely as “Agency A”; nevertheless, redacted invoices in Auditor General Denise Hanrahan’s report match unredacted invoices obtained by means of entry to info that identify Canadian Health Labs.

Soon after the auditor basic’s report was launched final yr, well being officers ordered a sweeping forensic evaluate of all funds made to Agency A. 

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services not too long ago confirmed that audit work — which is being accomplished by Deloitte — remains to be ongoing.

According to Hanrahan’s report, Canadian Health Labs obtained money funds totalling $73.6 million from provincial well being authorities over the three-year interval of 2022 to 2024. CHL not has contracts with the province.

The EV leases had been solely a sliver of that whole quantity — lower than $550,000. But Hanrahan raised particular crimson flags about them.

“We found little evidence that health authorities verified that the electric vehicles were in use by a nurse, or even that the electric vehicles existed,” the auditor basic wrote.

So CBC Investigates regarded into these EVs, the businesses linked to them, and the money that got here out of taxpayers’ pockets to pay for them.

Here’s what we discovered.

EV rental firm had workplace at Gander lodge

In the summer season of 2022, Canadian EV Labs Inc. was integrated in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

The sole director was Bill Hennessey, CEO of Canadian Health Labs.

The following March, the corporate modified its identify to CSL EV Inc.

“The business which the company will carry on in Newfoundland and Labrador is owning a fleet of rental vehicles,” provincial company filings famous.

Hennessey remained the only real director.

According to the auditor basic’s report, in mid-March, Central Health rejected a proposal from CHL to produce its nurses with electrical autos. 

“Most concerning is when the authority said no to a vendor who offered a service,” Hanrahan mentioned on the press convention the place she launched her report.

“In this particular case it would be electrical vehicles at above market rates. But they paid for it and then didn’t even seem to know that they did, when we asked.”

Canadian Health Labs continued to bill rental fees for electrical autos from CSL, and the well being authority continued to pay them.

In company registration paperwork, CSL — the affiliate firm set as much as personal the rental fleet — listed a registered workplace handle at 133 Bennett Drive in Gander. That’s the identical location as Sinbad’s Hotel.

The proprietor of the lodge did not reply to questions on whether or not it knew the EV firm was utilizing its handle. CHL’s Hennessey additionally didn’t reply.

There is not any proof that the Town of Gander was conscious the enterprise could have been working out of the lodge’s location.

In response to an entry to info request final yr, the city mentioned it had no data in any respect from the start of 2022 onward associated to CSL or company names related to Canadian Health Labs.

According to city price range paperwork, automobile rental places of work are labeled for example of corporations topic to municipal enterprise taxes.

The Town of Gander didn’t reply to a number of inquiries from CBC Investigates about whether or not the rental firm was paying taxes — and, if not, whether or not they need to have been.

The electrical car billings in Canadian Health Labs invoices had been referenced to “CSL.”

CSL — beneath its authentic identify, Canadian EV Labs — registered six autos within the province in 2023.

However, CHL charged the well being authority for 12 CSL electrical autos throughout the identical week in late October, at a fee of between $1,021 and $1,368 per week.

It’s attainable they used CSL vehicles registered elsewhere, however CHL didn’t reply to questions in search of extra particulars. 

Health officers had ‘limited awareness’ of leases 

In her report, Hanrahan raised a collection of questions on these electrical autos, and concluded that well being authority officers “appeared to have limited awareness” of the leases.

The AG discovered that taxpayers paid greater than $90,000 for 81 weeks of electrical car leases for nurses that weren’t within the province.

Another $227,000 was paid for electrical car leases “without any indication of who was supposedly using the vehicle,” the report famous.

The CBC Investigates evaluate of invoices reveals that one of many leases doesn’t seem to have been assigned to a nurse.

For a interval of greater than three months within the latter half of 2023, EV#19 was billed to taxpayers within the identify of a CHL logistics supervisor described in company filings as the corporate’s enterprise contact in Gander.

According to the invoices, the usual weekly cost for EV#19 was $1,288.

However, the well being authority was billed $6,440 for EV#19 for a single week firstly of the rental interval — that’s a cost of $920 per day. 

And that’s not the one time billings reached that degree — or past.

In mid-2023, the data present, a separate weeklong EV rental value $6,636 — practically $950 per day.

Controversy about journey nurse hiring ongoing for years

The value of journey nurses — and Newfoundland and Labrador’s dependence on them — has been a long-simmering political problem within the province.

The controversy lastly got here to a boil in February 2024, after the Globe and Mail printed an investigation targeted on Canadian Health Labs.

The Globe reported that Newfoundland and Labrador taxpayers footed the invoice for the whole lot from Walmart furnishings to pet transportation to an air fryer. Those fees had been made on behalf of the company’s journey nurses.

In a response to the Globe, CHL mentioned contracts “are tailored to meet each jurisdiction’s significant local needs, and reflect the extraordinary logistical challenges of getting and keeping health care professionals in rural, remote and underserved communities.”

The newspaper reported that Newfoundland and Labrador had spent a complete of $35.6 million for nurses offered by a number of staffing businesses over the interval of April to August 2023. That in comparison with a mean of simply over $1 million yearly earlier than the pandemic.

Soon after, the auditor basic launched a efficiency audit of health-sector contracts. 

After the AG’s report was launched in June 2025, the general public accounts committee convened on the House of Assembly to evaluate her findings.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services officers indicated at that August listening to {that a} contract for a forensic audit was being finalized into funds made to “Agency A” — which data present is Canadian Health Labs.

At that August listening to, Liberal MHA Perry Trimper referenced the EV leases specifically.

“Could you [say], in your words, without compromising the work that’s to come, what you see as some of the issues that arose around this rather obscure aspect of contracting nurses related to electric vehicles?” Trimper requested.

Pat Parfrey, the then-CEO of the provincial well being authority, replied.

“I don’t really want to comment on electric vehicles,” Parfrey mentioned. 

“If there is fraudulent activity, it’ll be identified by the forensic audit and exactly how they came through and how they were approved is not really clear to me, if you want the truth.”