Responding to an investigation by Duty on the long waiting times at Agir Soon, the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) and Quebec Solidaire (QS) attacked the Legault government on its management of the labor shortage in the health and social services.
QS co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois believes that Prime Minister François Legault “does not take care” of this problem which is nevertheless at the origin, according to him, of the delays in obtaining public services. According to the survey of Dutythe average wait for speech therapy, for children identified through Early Action, is at least 10 months in about ten regions in Quebec.
“While François Legault fights body and soul to improve the working conditions of his deputies and his ministers, the conditions of people in the public sector are stagnating, sometimes even deteriorating,” said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois during a press briefing at the National Assembly.
According to him, the two bills currently under study, which aim to reform the health (15) and education (23) systems, “completely miss the real problem in our public services, the lack of personnel “.
The Leader of the Official Opposition, Marc Tanguay, for his part, judges that Acting Early “does not work as it should because of the bad decisions of the government”. “They denied the labor shortage. […] They tabled their strategy for recruiting people three years too late. The programs that are in place, we do not know where they are going with that, ”said the elected Liberal at a press briefing.
Marc Tanguay believes that Acting Early is an “excellent” idea, but points out that resources are needed to provide the required services. “To hear the Minister tell us: ‘a year’s delay, it doesn’t matter, it won’t have an impact as long as we see him before kindergarten’, sorry, but that’s the very essence of ‘Act early. »
Parti Québécois MP Pascal Bérubé affirms for his part that “the government is good for announcements”, but that “the application” of these is “less there”. “Children, needless to say that should be the priority,” he said at a press briefing.
In an interview given to Duty as part of his investigation, the Minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, stressed that the goal of Agir Premier is to intervene “before school begins”. In particular, he indicated that he wanted to add resources in the next budget in order to reduce waiting lists.
Union reaction
The FP-CSN union, which represents professionals in the health and social services sector (speech therapists, occupational therapists, etc.), believes that the Legault government can do more to retain and attract staff to the public network, and thus avoid exodus to the private sector.
He is demanding pay rises, but also better working conditions, such as longer vacations. “In the public network, the 5e holiday week only arrives at 25 [d’ancienneté] “, indicates Andréane Demers-Laberge, representative of the FP-CSN on the committee which negotiates with the government.
The union believes that waiting times for the public, in particular at Agir jeune, could be reduced thanks to the voluntary increase in working hours by employees. All professionals could decide, twice a year, to work 7 hours or 7.5 hours a day, explains Ms.me Demers-Laberge. “We think there are a lot of people who would be interested in enhancing [leurs heures] and it could be an answer to the labor shortage if there was some flexibility. »
The FP-CSN is also asking the government to reduce red tape, a problem cited by professionals from Agir jeune au Duty.
With Isabelle Porter