The government is counting on the recruitment of nurses trained abroad to alleviate the labor shortage raging in Quebec. The challenge, to attract them, will be above all to welcome them in the region.
The government has the cards in hand to win its bet and attract 1,000 international nurses to its network by next year. However, the financial benefits will not be enough to retain recruits, according to some.
Quebec’s health care system is under criticism at home, but arouses much envy abroad. In the eyes of Charlotte Vasseur, the Quebec health system is not so dilapidated. On the contrary: this French nurse, landed in Rimouski in October, has been living a real honeymoon since her arrival in Bas-Saint-Laurent.
“The working conditions are so much better than in France, it’s really incomparable, enthuses the almost thirty-year-old. It’s even better than I expected. It’s going to be hard, precisely, to come back! »
The nurse from Rouen, Normandy, discovered on the Internet the Recrutement Santé Québec (RSQ) service, the government agency responsible for facilitating the hiring of foreign professionals to fill the Quebec health network.
“The people who work there are really helpful,” she says. It was really a good experience. It would be very selling if we knew, in France, that it is so easy and so pleasant. »
Since 2011, however, Quebec has paved the way for French nurses under a “mutual recognition arrangement”. When they come to work here, professionals from France obtain nurse clinician status after only a few weeks of adaptation to the network.
The newspaper The world was even enthusiastic about this “Quebec Eldorado” in an article published this week — barely four days after the filing, by the FIQ, of a complaint for forced labor at the UN…
The financial red carpet
Each year since 2018, according to data provided by RSQ, 350 nurses, on average, have taken the same route as Charlotte to come to work in Quebec. The government intends to triple this number by next year and to achieve this, it has rolled out a golden bridge to immigrants from French-speaking Africa.
The government pledged this week to pay nurses from the Maghreb, Cameroon and Mauritius during their training, in addition to paying the tuition fees inherent in obtaining their right to practice in Quebec.
In exchange, the successful candidates will have to put down roots in the region, where the needs are particularly pressing and where few recruits decide to settle. Over the past three years, the Montreal region has captured an ever-increasing proportion of nurses recruited by RSQ. In 2018, for example, half of the 340 nurses settled in metropolitan France. Last year, two-thirds chose Montreal.
“The regionalization of immigration remains a major challenge in Quebec,” analyzes Kamel Béji, professor in the department of industrial relations at Laval University. It’s fine to direct immigrants away from major centres, but do the regions have enough resources to welcome them? Do they have enough places in CPE, places in schools, housing? »
The government is also committed to welcoming the spouses and children of recruits hired abroad. According to Mr. Béji, Quebec must also integrate these relatives to be successful in its recruitment.
“Spouses must also be able to work,” emphasizes the professor. If they can’t find a job in the regions, they will look for it in Quebec or Montreal. »
Duty of transparency
Mr. Béji himself went through the immigrant journey when he left his native Tunisia. After 20 years of analyzing Quebec’s migration policies, he is critical of their evolution.
“Before, we had a vision of social cohesion. Now it’s a mentality of plugging holes to fill needs, laments the professor. It’s the market now that decides who comes to Quebec. »
Especially since the government, to relieve a lack of manpower, intends to “empty Africa of its brains”, deplores Mr. Béji.
“There is a moral dilemma that arises. For the past twenty years, we have been plundering the Maghreb of its gray matter”, laments the professor, denouncing the voracity of the rich States which compete to attract and retain qualified labor from developing countries. A growing problem in Tunisia, Mr Béji gives as an example, where 3,000 doctors have left the country in the past five years.
To treat immigrants with respect, Mr. Béji believes that Quebec first has a duty of transparency towards recruits hired internationally.
“These are people who change their lives completely,” explains the professor. They must know the conditions that await them in the Quebec health network. »
On the RSQ site, no mention of the “TSO”, the compulsory overtime set up in management mode in Quebec, appears under the “Work schedule” tab. Charlotte, before arriving, knew nothing of this particularity in Quebec.
“You may not realize how difficult it is,” she explains. The nurse from Rouen, in Normandy, however, has the impression of being in an “idyllic bubble” in the psychiatry unit where she works in Rimouski, since the overtime imposed is not commonplace there.
A third migratory link
Not everyone knows Charlotte’s magical story when she landed in Quebec. Delays in obtaining permanent residence have discouraged many. The limited capacity to process files submitted to the Order of Nurses of Quebec (OIIQ) can also put sand in the gears and impose a way of the cross before reaching “the Quebec El Dorado. »
To attract and retain immigrants, Quebec and Ottawa will have to invest, calculates Kamel Béji. “It’s not a third between Quebec and Lévis that we need. It’s a solid link between Quebec and the world,” concludes the professor.