After failing to recruit hundreds of beneficiary attendants internationally, the government of François Legault is now dangling the same solution to meet the shortage of nurses.
If the past is a guarantor of the future, the chances are slim to see thousands of professionals flocking to come to the rescue of the health network.
The Liberal critic for health, André Fortin, calls on the government to act quickly to analyze the failure of the program to recruit beneficiary attendants abroad and to correct the shortcomings.
“You can’t make the same mistakes a second time,” he warns.
As of December 17, there were 3,871 nurse technicians and clinicians missing in the Quebec network, according to data from the dashboard of the Ministry of Health. To this we can add 1,708 licensed practical nurses for a total of 5,500 positions to be filled.
Among the solutions proposed by the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, we are talking in particular about recruiting internationally. However, according to the figures obtained by The Canadian Press Thanks to the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies, Quebec has managed to attract between 359 and 399 nurses per year for the past five years.
During the period from 1er September to January 20, 145 nurses were won over by the Recrutement Santé Québec service, whose mission is to facilitate “the recruitment, reception and integration of health and social services professionals with degrees from outside Canada who master French.
These few hundred healthcare professionals come mainly from France, but also from Belgium, Morocco, Cameroon, Tunisia, Lebanon or Benin in particular.
The retention challenge
Once these nurses have been recruited, it is now necessary to know how to keep them. According to the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), this is far from guaranteed.
“We can’t get nurses abroad and bring them here under the current conditions,” said FIQ President Julie Bouchard, listing the issues of workload, mandatory overtime and work patients “who have no common sense”.
According to her, the government must take the steps “correctly”. “We are improving working conditions, we are going to stabilize the care teams, we are going to introduce a law on ratios, we are going to plan the workforce and then we will know exactly how much is lacking. nurses and how much we can look for abroad and allow them to be well in Quebec”, elaborates the one who carries the voice of approximately 80,000 nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists.
The president of the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), Sylvain Brousseau, agrees. “Going to get people from abroad is not the solution because they don’t stay either,” he insists, based on his own observations.
“We should ask ourselves why? It’s the work environment that requires a radical change to make it more human,” adds the man who is also an associate researcher at the Outaouais Integrated Health and Social Services Center and a regular researcher at the Knowledge Institute of Montfort Hospital in Ottawa.
Whether they are immigrants or of Quebec origin, nurses all seek to improve their lot.
In the office of the Quebec Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, we maintain that “international recruitment is one of the solutions for finding more personnel in our health network” and we promise to continue efforts in this regard. meaning. The Minister also states that he intends to make the health network “an employer of choice”.
For Julie Bouchard, the recipe is quite simple. We must revalue the work of healthcare professionals. “If we significantly improve their working conditions with better wages, then we will create a pendulum effect and that’s where the government will be able to say that it has become an employer of choice”, pleads the president of the FIQ.
The spokesperson for Quebec solidaire in terms of health, Vincent Marissal, also believes that the current working conditions risk scaring away potential candidates.
“If you are a Senegalese or French nurse and you do a little research on Google (with the words) health, Quebec and hospitals, there is something to worry about or even scare you with the news that will come out”, warns- he.
Promising initiative
In February 2022, the Minister of Immigration at the time, Jean Boulet, announced alongside his colleague from Health, Christian Dubé, an investment of $65 million over two years to find 1,000 nurses elsewhere in the world.
The initiative seems promising so far, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health. We would have succeeded in attracting 1533 candidates to the profession. However, they must first “follow the refresher training prescribed by the Order of Nurses of Quebec (OIIQ)” and pass the admission to the profession exam to obtain their right to practice.
On the side of the OIIQ, President Luc Mathieu affirms that the skills recognition process has been greatly improved following the partnership developed with the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration.
According to Mr. Mathieu, some less well-off countries which also lack nursing personnel would try to curb the exodus of their professionals by refusing to provide certain documents or by dragging out the file.
Sylvain Brousseau also raises an ethical problem in despoiling states that are already weakened. “That people come of their own accord, I have no problem, but that we go and seek resources in countries where they themselves are in need, there, I have a problem”, he denounces .
From a very down-to-earth point of view, Julie Bouchard also points out that Quebec may not be ready to welcome a large number of newcomers, because the word “shortage” does not agree only with main -d’oeuvre, but also with housing and daycare.
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