After the teachers, Quebec must now come to an agreement with the nurses. But their union will refuse to sign if the Legault government persists in imposing compulsory travel between departments.
“For us, this request must leave the negotiating table so that we can achieve something interesting for the 80,000 healthcare professionals in Quebec. If compulsory travel remains on the table, an agreement in principle will not be reached,” declared the president of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), Julie Bouchard, during a press briefing in Montreal Thursday.
Its members, she clarified, would reject an agreement in principle that contained such a provision.
Since the start of negotiations, the Legault government has asked for more “flexibility”, both from the teachers with whom it has agreed and from the nurses, still without a new collective agreement.
But if the Minister of Health insists on the need to allow a nurse from Montreal to work on the South Shore, for example, the FIQ assures that this obligation would also apply between departments of the same hospital.
Quebec claims that these trips would be done on a voluntary basis, but its assurances do not convince the union.
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Anxiety
Already, the FIQ has listed cases where a nurse had to replace in a department other than their area of specialty, even if current collective agreements do not impose compulsory travel.
Alongside Mme Bouchard, a clinical nurse specializing in perinatal care, Tracey Beaudoin, came to explain the anxiety she experienced when she was parachuted into the birthing center of her hospital in central Quebec.
Used to working in community care, the young woman admits to not having felt up to it. “The hospital environment, it’s been years since I touched that, I don’t remember everything,” she emphasizes.
A baby can “decompensate” or the mother can hemorrhage, she illustrates. “I don’t want anything to happen to a little baby or a mother because I wasn’t quick enough,” said Tracey Beaudoin.
During her shift, however, she found herself alone with an auxiliary nurse with three months of experience.
Despite this lack of expertise, the two women were assigned a patient with complications. “We looked at each other and said: “It’s precarious”. Because I, this patient, if she had a hemorrhage, I wouldn’t know what to do,” testified Tracey Beaudoin.
In the CIUSSS de la Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Québec, where M worksme Beaudoin, the FIQ estimates that nearly 200 nurses have retired early or resigned since the start of a pilot project to test travel between various departments, or even between CLSCs and hospitals.
The president of the FIQ emphasizes that a specialist doctor would not be asked to comply with such requests. “We wouldn’t see a heart surgeon go and give birth in the next room,” illustrates Julie Bouchard.
Voluntary basis
In the office of the President of the Treasury Board, which is leading the negotiations, it is emphasized that “the government must ensure that there are enough nurses, at all times and in the right places, to provide adequate care to the population. population”.
“As part of this negotiation, we do not want to force nurses to travel, but rather we are offering a financial incentive to those who would like to go and lend a hand to their colleagues. All this on a voluntary basis,” says Sonia LeBel’s team.
“One thing is certain: we will never compromise on patient safety and the training required. It’s primordial. The protection of the public is non-negotiable,” we assure.