The cry from the heart of the emergency room nurses at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont has been heard. The head of unit whose nurses demanded the resignation will be reassigned to another function, confirmed the president and director general of the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. Emergencies will remain open and an external advisor has also been recruited to improve the working climate.
The emergency is so bad that it had to be partially closed last night due to a lack of personnel. The nurses held a sit-in and refused the contingency plan offered by their employer. Ambulances were redirected to other hospitals.
“It’s an untenable situation,” summed up Minister Christian Dubé in a press briefing on Tuesday in front of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital (HMR), recalling that the nurses informed the CIUSSS of their decision a few hours notice. . “We respected their decision, but at the same time, it still puts us in a rather difficult situation,” he said.
The Minister indicated that an outside advisor has been recruited to hear the parties. The work climate needs to improve, he said.
“We agreed to bring someone from outside the situation to come and continue trying to find solutions,” said Christian Dubé. There will already be discussions this afternoon. In his press briefing, the Minister recalled that this crisis is occurring in the context of collective agreement negotiations.
“Toxic Atmosphere”
Nearly a hundred emergency nurses and nursing assistants signed a petition demanding the immediate resignation of their unit head, otherwise they threatened to resign on Wednesday. The signatories denounce the too frequent use of compulsory overtime (TSO) and the “toxic atmosphere” that has prevailed since the arrival of their head of unit. The document was delivered to the CEO on Friday.
“Since her appointment as head of the HMR emergency last July, we have seen a dazzling deterioration in our working conditions. The number of TSOs is constantly growing and this encourages our team members to leave, thus creating more than deplorable working conditions,” they argue in the petition. The nurses and nursing assistants add that they no longer have “any confidence in the management and leadership abilities” of their unit head.
Asked about this at a press briefing on Tuesday, the CEO of the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, Jean-François Fortin Verreault, stressed that he did not want to “personalize the debate “. He added that “the situation is extremely difficult” at HMR and that the “person in question” is not responsible for the fact that the hospital receives more patients than its capacity. However, he agreed to the nurses’ request and reassigned the problematic manager. She will remain employed by the establishment, but will “not be in direct contact with the team”. A person recruited “externally” will take his place.
On Monday evening, he met the angry nurses himself. “A hundred different actions to improve” the situation were suggested to him, according to him.
The emergency will be fully open tonight, he assured reporters. “The goal is to keep the emergency room open. »
Open, yes, but…
If the emergency room remains open, it hangs by a thread, warned Denis Cloutier, president of the Union of Care Professionals of the East-of-the-Island-of-Montreal. “We are currently short of 12 nurses out of 24 for the evening shift. 50% of the staff is absent tonight. And these are not unforeseen absences, it is the state of the situation of the work forces at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont emergency room. »
“It was still important for the chef to be tight. It was going too far. But beyond the person, it is a problem of scarcity,” he insisted. “It takes the rapid injection of healthcare professionals into this team. »
This is precisely the solution advocated by Quebec solidaire health critic Vincent Marissal. This partial breakdown of service is bound to be repeated if Quebec does not recruit privately hired nurses from the public. “If it is necessary to requisition [les infirmières], in war as in war, they are requisitioned. On this, the government and Minister Dubé never had the courage to go there,” said Vincent Marissal.
Many emergencies are understaffed, reminds the To have to Dr. Gilbert Boucher, President of the Association of Emergency Medicine Specialists of Quebec. “There are a lot of centers where the doctors administer the drugs themselves because there are no more nurses [disponibles]. Some people do blood tests, IVs. »