The rate of absenteeism due to illness has reached an all-time high in recent months among nurses. It is on this chronic problem, a burden for the health system, that Quebec should concentrate most of its efforts rather than on the conversion of caregivers refractory to the vaccine, argue several voices in the community.
In 2021, the ratio of hours paid in salary insurance exceeded the thresholds of recent years, and even that of the first year of the pandemic. At least that is what the data provided by the Ministry of Health and Social Services reveal on the time paid in salary insurance to staff of the health network for the first six financial periods of 2021-2022.
The Ministry’s calculation method does not allow the number of employees absent for reasons of illness to be known, but rather produces a ratio indicative of the absenteeism rate. This ratio is set by dividing the total number of hours paid for salary insurance by the total number of hours worked.
However, the latest report shows that sick leave continued to rise among nurses in 2021, with a ratio up 6.5% compared to the same period last year. An increase added to an already glaring problem, since the increase in the ratio of time paid in salary insurance had already jumped by 29% between 2014 and 2019, and by 6% between 2019 and 2020.
From 6% in 2014, the famous ratio of hours paid in salary insurance for nurses exceeded 8% for the first time during the first year of the pandemic, and reached 8.4% in September 2021.
The picture is not rosier for absences linked to work-related illnesses or injuries. The ratio of hours paid to nurses by the Committee on Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST), which jumped by more than 80% during the first year of the pandemic due to many COVID-related infections, is still 37% higher than in 2018.
“Huge wave of absenteeism”
Some observers believe that the government’s priority attention should turn to this deleterious reality for the healthcare network, rather than to that of recalcitrant workers still refusing to be vaccinated.
“The departures that we anticipate on November 15 (if the decree on compulsory vaccination is applied), it is minimal compared to the thousands of workers in salary insurance who plague the turnover of the health system. Should we deploy so much energy on people whose values do not want to budge? It would be more profitable to invest in strategies and serious programs to help return to work to find nurses who want to work, but who are exhausted ”, estimates Roxane Borgès Da Silva, professor at the School of Health. of the Université de Montréal, which is currently researching absenteeism in the Quebec health network.
According to the latter, it is up to 10, 15 and even 20% of the staff who are missing in certain establishments of the health network. A burden that will not be able to disappear by calling for help a few hundred retired nurses or by converting unvaccinated employees, she thinks. “There was a huge wave of absenteeism in the first wave due to fear of the virus, cases of infections, then overwork. This absenteeism has not subsided. We must first tackle this. “
The Ministry of Health does not provide any figures on the number of employees of the health network on sick leave, since some work full-time, others part-time, and some are absent for a few days, others for several weeks or months. Hence the use of a ratio.
But according to the Interprofessional Health Federation of Quebec (FIQ), which brings together 76,000 nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and perfusionists, each increase of 1.25 point in the ratio paid in salary insurance represents a loss equivalent to 540 full-time nurses. . At more than 8.4%, the current ratio of time paid in salary insurance to nurses exceeds by 3 points the optimal ratio of 5 set by the Ministry of Health.
“The constant increase in absenteeism has been observed since 2008. It stems from the pressure exerted on nurses, compulsory overtime (OST) and the loss of proximity with superiors. Having seen atrocious end of life and the distress of patients during the pandemic also greatly affected the mental health of healthcare professionals, ”says Isabelle Groulx, Vice-President Health and Safety at Work of the FIQ.
Nearly 4,000 nurses have left their posts since the start of the pandemic, but thousands, in the absence of illness, could return to their posts in better conditions, she says.
“By tackling absenteeism and bringing back those who are absent, we could reduce mandatory overtime. We must do prevention to prevent further absences. It has been proven that in settings where there are prevention officers, it decreases the number of disabled employees. “