The Association des pharmaciens des establishments de santé du Québec (APES) supports the Legault government’s decision to authorize the return to work of health personnel infected with COVID-19 to avoid further load shedding.
Health and Social Services Minister Christian Dubé announced on Tuesday that essential workers who tested positive for COVID-19 could now work “under certain conditions”, while more than 7,000 network workers were absent due to the pandemic.
Pharmacists believe that the measures taken by Quebec represent an additional tool to “maintain the capacity to treat patients”.
For the APES, which concluded an agreement in principle with Quebec the day before, the new measure can make all the difference, in particular because of the small number of pharmacists in Quebec.
“Pharmacy departments will continue to do their utmost to limit contamination in the workplace, and if it is necessary to shorten the period of isolation of infected professionals to bring them back to work, this approach will be applied with the utmost rigor to reduce the risks to a minimum ”, the president of the EPAS François Paradis indicated in a press release on Tuesday.