Quebec is relaxing the conditions for access to attraction and retention bonuses for health personnel and is giving itself more time to recruit nurses who will come to help the network.
In a statement sent on Friday, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, announced that it will now be possible for the employees concerned to take up to ten days of unpaid leave without being penalized.
In October, The duty revealed that nurses would have to reimburse all of their premiums – ranging from $ 12,000 to $ 18,000 – if they took a single day without pay during the year.
Professionals with access to the premiums had until December 15 to signal their interest. Quebec has finally postponed this date to January 14, 2022.
Expanded eligibility
In the number of flexibilities, Minister Dubé is proposing a “partial lump sum in steps”, depending on the hours worked, for full-time employees with atypical schedules or self-managed schedules.
It also makes teaching staff in nursing and cardiorespiratory care eligible for lump sums, in proportion to “their schedule within the network”.
Staff retention and attraction bonuses were announced in September. With these bonuses, the government had said it hoped to keep nurses in the public system and convince 4,300 others, private parties, to return to the bosom of the state.
However, the many restrictions associated with these bonuses have been denounced by network professionals, unions and opposition parties. The Interprofessional Health Federation of Quebec (FIQ) even brandished the threat of legal proceedings to suspend the ministerial decree establishing these premiums.
Minister Dubé, then Prime Minister François Legault, then criticized the unions for undermining staff recruitment efforts by seeking above all to satisfy their own interests. Christian Dubé nevertheless said he was open to relaxing the many conditions associated with staff attraction and retention bonuses.
Radio-Canada has also revealed that the nurses in the emergency room at LaSalle, in Montreal, would be deprived of the premium because of a particular schedule management model that they have set up.
As of November 25, Quebec had succeeded in convincing 1221 nurses to return to the network. In total, since September, 124 retirees have returned to the fold of the State and 1097 independent resources have returned to the public. In addition, there are 3,664 people who worked part-time and have switched to full-time.