On Wednesday morning, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, presented a bill to limit the use of personnel placement agencies and independent labor in the health network. To this end, the presidency, the franchisees and the employees of Serenis Canada wish to express their position on this important societal issue.
Since its creation more than ten years ago, Serenis Canada has recognized the importance of implementing measures to regulate the use of private agencies. On the other hand, it is utopian to think that a bill, developed to improve the government’s relations with the unions and asking for the abolition of private agencies, could reduce all the ills of the health network. Indeed, only 5% of all health professionals come from agencies.
A survey by the Association of private healthcare personnel companies in Quebec also shows that 70% of agency employees surveyed “would probably have reoriented their careers in another field instead of staying in the public network” if the agencies “didn’t did not exist”. Needless to say, these figures show that private agencies act more like a net to reintegrate health professionals who would otherwise have deserted the network.
In this context, private agencies find it hard to understand how the government can want to deprive itself of these health professionals who ensure the maintenance of health care offered to Quebecers.
Necessary coexistence
While Minister Dubé says he wants to make the public sector “an employer of choice”, private agencies are questioning the reasons for this bill, which does not take into account the real demands of health professionals, either to have better working conditions. Beyond all this, it remains normal and desirable for a health professional to be able to choose his employer. By having a monopoly, the government never has to question how to improve the working conditions of its employees.
The government sometimes erroneously thinks that private agencies have the one and only objective of getting greased, while the fundamental values of agencies are to humanize health care, to support their colleagues in the public system in order to to give a moment of respite and avoid load shedding in the health care offered to Quebecers.
In addition, it is important to consider the fact that with all the inherent costs absorbed by the government with the hiring of a health professional in the public network (for example bonuses, overtime, sick leave and social benefits ), the price paid for an agency professional is almost equivalent.
Private agencies believe that the coexistence of public and private in the health network is necessary to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the health network. Countries like France, Spain, Denmark and Germany have understood this.
And it is not another debate between the private and the public which will improve the portrait of the health system, but a deep reflection on the organization of care.
To this end, we are once again requesting a meeting with the Minister of Health in order not only to discuss the consequences that this law could have on the health network, but also to engage in a respectful and constructive dialogue with the office of the Minister of Health. .