(Quebec) The Parti Québécois is asking the Legault government to set up an emergency committee, as it does during natural disasters, to stem the workforce crisis that has been affecting the CISSS de la Côte-Nord for months.
“As we do, for example, for forest fires that threaten a city or a region, well here, the fire is caught on the North Shore and it risks setting the rest of the regions ablaze. What we are asking the government is to copy the civil security crisis management procedure to apply it to the health system,” explained PQ MNA Joël Arseneau in an interview.
According to the health spokesperson, Quebec must bring together representatives from the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Santé Québec, the CISSS de la Côte-Nord, paramedics, doctors, nursing staff and local elected officials to quickly identify solutions.
“People have things to say, they know the terrain,” pleads the elected representative from the Magdalen Islands.
We are told that there are solutions that could be applicable, but when they are transmitted to the CISSS authorities, we are told that their hands are tied on the financial, administrative or union basis and therefore, the solutions do not move forward.
Joël Arseneau, Health Spokesperson for the Parti Québécois
Last-minute reinforcements have helped avoid a significant reduction in services planned for the Baie-Comeau emergency room, the CISSS de la Côte-Nord confirmed on Monday. However, the president of the council of physicians, dentists and pharmacists, Dr.r Youssef Ezahr says he is still worried as regional facilities “have no room for maneuver.”
Last week, some 10 doctors from the region accused Quebec of “playing Russian roulette” with the population by taking the “hasty” decision to tighten the rules for the use of independent labor.
“When doctors come out of their usual reserve and essentially sound the alarm [indiquant] that it is truly people’s lives that are in danger, I think we cannot take this lightly. I find it absolutely astonishing to see that this crisis has been going on for months. The Ministry does not seem to understand what is happening,” deplores Mr. Arseneau.
Not a crisis unit
The Parti Québécois’ proposal is not to recreate a crisis unit as the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, did to relieve pressure on emergency rooms in Greater Montreal in the fall of 2022.
“We never really knew if the solutions [de cette cellule] were applied or not. I am talking about an emergency measures committee so that, within the next few days, all those who are concerned by the situation will be around the same table […] and say how we remove obstacles,” he illustrates.
The Parti Québécois points out that “the damage stems from the catastrophic transition created by the CAQ to end our dependence on private agencies” and that it must implement exceptional solutions to restore the situation. In addition, it points out that the flying team promised to go and lend a hand to workers on the Côte-Nord is slow to materialize.
At last count, 14 workers from the health flying team were dispatched to the North Shore territory, including 3 nurses and 4 nursing assistants. Before the parliamentary recess, Minister Christian Dubé hoped to deploy a flying team of 500 caregivers to put out the fires this summer on the North Shore, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and in Outaouais.