While the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, is delighted to see 400 people interested in participating in a possible flying team to provide care and services in regions where the lack of manpower is more glaring, the FIQ is proposing to expand this flying team, not only to remote regions, but to all regions where there is a shortage of personnel.
Last week, the Minister of Health announced with the FTQ and the CSN the creation of a flying team to be assigned to regions such as the Côte-Nord and Abitibi-Témiscamingue, where the situation is more difficult currently.
However, the FTQ and the CSN represent few nurses, although they represent the majority of beneficiary attendants. The FIQ, which has 80,000 members, represents more than 90% of nurses in Quebec, and the CSQ follows, with 5,000. But the latter two are not signatories to the agreement on the flying team, for the moment.
The president of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, welcomed Thursday the FIQ’s desire to participate in this flying team. But, to do this, Quebec must negotiate the conditions with the FIQ. “As we speak, the collective agreement does not allow the full deployment of this type of team. »
The FIQ proposes to expand these flying teams beyond remote regions, but wants these trips to remain voluntary, and not imposed. “We are proposing today at the negotiating table to expand the national flying teams so that it can alleviate the labor problem in all regions of Quebec,” replied the vice-president of the FIQ and co-responsible of negotiation, Jérôme Rousseau.