The lack of childcare spaces is causing headaches in the health network. Nurses are unable to find a place in CPE or daycare for their baby, which forces them to delay their return to work after their parental leave. A problem that does nothing to help the shortage of personnel.
Mélodie Dessureault is a home care nurse at the CISSS de la Gaspésie. She was to return to her position last June following her maternity leave. Eight months later, the 30-year-old mother is still at home, on unpaid leave. She couldn’t find any child care for her boy, now 1.5 years old. “I had to remortgage my house! she says. We were a family that lived on two salaries and I was the big salary. We end up with almost nothing. Her spouse, a forestry worker, has custody of two children from a previous relationship every other week.
The resident of a small village on the edge of Gaspé does not expect to obtain a place in daycare “in the next year”. “I am 40e on a list! she says.
According to her, the CISSS de la Gaspésie could open a daycare center in empty premises in the building where she works. She took the idea to her employer, and it was rejected for safety reasons, she says. “It’s a lack of willpower,” says the nurse. It’s easier to call an agency and say “I need someone”. » Mme Dessureault is organizing a demonstration in Gaspé in April so that parents without childcare services in the region can make their voices heard.
Across Quebec, health care workers — like many other parents — are affected by the shortage of places in CPEs. The Ma place au travail movement, which emerged in March 2021 on social networks, is also receiving testimonials from nurses and beneficiary attendants. “It’s all the irony of the thing,” said his spokesperson Marylin Dion. In trades where there is an incredibly large labor shortage, people cannot go back to work because they don’t have daycare. »
Caroline Laberge, nurse in the operating room of the CHU de Québec, fears having to stay home at the end of her parental leave in May. The 31-year-old mother couldn’t find childcare for her 8.5-month-old daughter. “I have been on the La Place 0-5 year old list since September 2021,” she said. I’m on every possible facebook group on earth for daycare [et les services de garde en milieu familial]. It looks like you almost have to make a CV for your child: “My child has four teeth, he is able to eat, walk…””
Family daycare schedules — “often 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” she says — don’t suit her shift, which starts at 7:45 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m. “I can’t start 15 minutes late,” says the nurse, who specifies that her husband is at work at 6 a.m.
Shortage leading to another
Nathalie Tremblay works at the Montmagny hospital, in Chaudière-Appalaches. She holds a full-time position in the bariatric clinic and the day surgery unit. She had to delay her return to work for three months, due to a lack of childcare space for her daughter.
It is thanks to the former educator of her two older daughters – aged 7 and 9 – that she was able to return to work in September, she says. “She was really discouraged by my situation and she was well aware of the shortage of nurses,” says Ms.me Tremblay. She made a request to review her ratio so that she could take my daughter, until I had a place in a family environment. Her child has been attending the CPE Enfant-Bonheur since January, which has an agreement with the CISSS de Chaudière-Appalaches.
The health establishment has signed a 40-year emphyteutic lease with the CPE so that it can build a facility there on its land, “and this, completely free of charge and at no cost to the CPE”, writes the CISSS. “Places will be reserved for the children of workers who have atypical hours,” it adds.
The CISSS de la Gaspésie, for its part, says it is working with partners to find solutions to the lack of childcare places.
The CISSS de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the Center Frère-Moffet launched a daycare service in Ville-Marie in September to provide places for employees in need.
That’s the irony of it all. In trades where there is an incredibly large labor shortage, people cannot go back to work because they don’t have daycare.
The problem nevertheless remains unresolved in the region, according to the president of the Interprofessional Health Care Union of Abitibi-Témiscamingue (FIQ-SISSAT), Jean-Sébastien Blais. He estimates that about 20 nurses, nursing assistants and respiratory therapists are on unpaid leave due to a lack of places in childcare facilities. “Why, during the pandemic, we had a priority place, and now not? he asks. The system is no better. »
At the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS), it is recalled that “the development of the network of educational childcare services [SGEE] is under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Family”. “Although we do not have a register on child care establishments within the establishments of the health and social services network, many have child care establishments within their facilities or on their land, we write. It is the responsibility of institutions to determine whether a childcare establishment can be implemented. The MSSS points out that “some seniors’ home projects provide, when possible, SGEEs”.
The Ministère de la Famille confirms that CPEs exist in health establishments and that “certain” CIUSSSs or CISSSs are affiliated with daycare services. CPEs who so wish, he continues, can give “priorities to nursing staff” in their admission policies.