Some are relieved, others worried. Employers who provide essential services recognize that having COVID-19 positive but asymptomatic staff work could allow them to avoid service disruptions. But many wonder how to get there safely.
Grocery stores, pharmacies, community centers, trucking, slaughterhouses: the relaxations announced Tuesday for health workers could soon be extended to other sectors considered essential, suggested the Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé .
“Are we going to want to put other employees at risk? Asks Alain Lacasse, director of public affairs for the Association of Food Retailers of Quebec. “Aren’t we going to set the shops on fire? It is to be calculated. We do not yet have the terms for the rest of the essential workers. “
The upsurge in COVID-19 cases affects many employers in Quebec. In grocery stores, 10% to 15% of employees are missing, according to Alain Lacasse.
Some stores have fewer people, others more, it depends on the sector, but with the holiday season, that has repercussions.
Alain Lacasse, Director of Public Affairs for the Association of Food Retailers of Quebec
The return of employees who test positive, however, could exacerbate the labor shortage, he fears. “It’s risky anyway. We are already short of staff. If there is an outbreak in a store, we are no further ahead. ”
Avoid downtime
In other sectors, the lack of manpower is so glaring that the government’s announcement is greeted with relief. “We are very limited,” explains Frédérick Dugas, pharmacist and co-owner of a Uniprix pharmacy in Montreal. “We are about 10 employees. On a technical level, especially, if someone is absent, that puts us in difficulty. ”
According to the pharmacist, if N95 masks were distributed to his team and an employee was asymptomatic, this would make it possible to maintain services to the population.
Of course we are not on the tightrope like [le milieu de la santé]. But all the same, we cannot afford a break in services.
Frédérick Dugas, pharmacist and co-owner of a Uniprix pharmacy
The Quebec Association of Owner Pharmacists has also publicly supported the government’s announcement in a press release Tuesday.
Maintain services for the most vulnerable
The situation is similar for roaming services at the Old Brewery mission in Montreal. “I have workers screened and without any symptoms and they feel helpless at home,” says Émilie Fortier, director of emergency services at the Old Brewery mission. The organization manages shelters, the Hôtel-Dieu day center and the isolation zone for homeless people with COVID-19, in partnership with Public Health.
Now, it’s about finding a balance to avoid service disruptions… We are no further ahead if there is no one to manage the isolation areas.
Émilie Fortier, director of emergency services at the Old Brewery mission
The Association of Intermediate Accommodation Resources of Quebec (ARIHQ) also welcomed this new measure in a press release published on Tuesday.
“Obviously, we would have preferred not to come to this,” said Johanne Pratte, Director General of ARIHQ in the press release. “But in the circumstances and [compte tenu de] the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, this flexibility appears to us to be necessary to maintain the services needed by the more than 17,000 vulnerable people housed in one of the 1,000 intermediate resources in Quebec. ”
” Illogical “
However, not all agree on the benefits of such an easing. Sylvain Ménard, president of the union at the Unidindon plant – a subsidiary of Olymel located in Saint-Jean-Baptiste – is opposed to this measure. “It’s already difficult to manage cases of COVID-19 in factories, so to bring them in even if they are positive, I don’t think it’s going to be possible,” he said.
He fears difficult management of positive cases at work. “What will it do to bring positive people into the factory?” Are they going to open a separate department for infected people? He wonders. “For me, that doesn’t make sense. ”
With the collaboration of Coralie Laplante and Alice Girard-Bossé, Press
The reverse of screening
PHOTO FREYA INGRID MORALES, BLOOMBERG ARCHIVES
The Alliance of Professional and Technical Personnel in Health and Social Services estimates that 500 to 1,000 laboratory analysis technicians are lacking in the health system.
Behind the long lines of COVID-19 testing are lab technicians who analyze each sample. The labor shortage is hitting this essential sector hard.
“In laboratories, before COVID, it was already overload. With COVID, it’s overheating, ”says Sandra Étienne, fourth vice-president of the Alliance of professional and technical personnel in health and social services (APTS).
The union estimates that 500 to 1,000 laboratory analysis technicians are lacking in the health system. The shortage has been accentuated by this new wave of COVID-19.
“The members are at the end of their rope, they give themselves for the health and well-being of the Quebec population, but we ask them to make superhuman efforts [comme des heures supplémentaires obligatoires] », Explains Sandra Étienne.
“Not a stake”
Asked about the lack of personnel in analysis laboratories to carry out screening, Minister Christian Dubé maintained that “until now, it has not been an issue”. Laboratories have carried out “up to 50,000 analyzes in recent days, which is a record,” he said.
A response qualified as “denial and incomprehension [du métier] »By Sandra Étienne.
The director of the APTS also considers “inconsistent” the new government directive to employ employees who have tested positive for COVID-19. For his part, the public health director of the CISSS de Laval, Dr Jean-Pierre Trépanier, affirms that “the more the people affected [par la COVID-19] have a key role to play [comme les techniciens de laboratoire], the more critical it becomes to keep them employed ”.
About 8 out of 60 laboratory workers were absent due to COVID-19 in the CISSS de Laval on Tuesday.