(Quebec) Health workers, a high proportion of whom are women, suffer from a “form of institutional violence”, denounces Vincent Marissal. The MP for Québec solidaire urges Québec to put an end to compulsory overtime and to “get rid of” labor placement agencies.
“It’s always been like that, and these women are abused. They suffer from a form of institutional violence, ”said the deputy for Rosemont on Wednesday, who is returning from a tour of hospitals in the province. “When you talk to people in a rest room, systematically, in all the hospitals I’ve been to, there are people who start crying,” he said.
These people are at their wit’s end. I don’t do theatre, I don’t do psychodrama. These people are exhausted. Then it turns out that each time, well, there were 95% women around the table.
Vincent Marissal, solidarity deputy for Rosemont
He said he echoed comments made by CAQ MP Shirley Dorismond, who said when she was vice-president of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec that the government was “complicit in violent organization” with regard to women health workers.
The supportive MP attributes the situation to the deterioration of the working conditions of employees in the health network, more specifically to the use of compulsory overtime and independent labor “which [fait] the law in the network. He asks the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, to make agency staff ineligible for day shifts.
“It’s time for Mr. Dubé to stop the slogan machine, then to come up with solutions on the ground, because what we are doing, we will pay for it for decades. We are in the process of demobilizing a whole generation of nurses who either flirt with the burnouteither will leave [le réseau] “, he launched.
For the time being, a series of measures regulate the use of labor placement agencies under Law 28, which gives exceptional powers to the government until December 31. The decrees in force notably set price ceilings that the agencies must respect. The Ministry of Health and Social Services is currently carrying out “work” to assess which measure could be made permanent.
The health network is shaken by a new crisis as emergency rooms in Greater Montreal and several regions are overwhelmed. Minister Christian Dubé deployed a crisis cell at the beginning of November to unclog the emergency room.
Nurses “to butt »
The Parti Québécois and the Liberal Party of Quebec are not ready to speak of “institutional violence”, but maintain that the working conditions of nurses are unsustainable.
“We have a major problem for which solutions have been discussed year after year, at least for four years, and which have not been implemented,” lamented PQ MP Joël Arseneau, who also points to the use of agencies. and compulsory overtime.
“The government does not demonstrate this desire to improve working conditions, safety ratios for employees, and particularly predominantly female positions,” he continues.
“What I see are women and men who are out of breath, leaving the public network en masse,” said interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay. “I will not go on the theme, I will go on the observation of the nurses at butt “, he added.
According to Minister Dubé’s dashboard, the use of the mandatory additional rate has decreased slightly since the summer, from 1.57% in July to 0.91% in November, for nursing and cardio-respiratory care personnel affected to emergencies. The use of independent labor for this same group of workers, on the other hand, has been on the rise since September.