April 7, 2022, 1:53 a.m. I have trouble sleeping, so I get out of bed to testify. Disarray, sadness, anger, feeling of injustice, loss of meaning. It all mixes up. I can no longer keep silent, see my spouse in pain and, like so many others, leave the ship out of breath.
Last week, my spouse returned from his evening shift in a CHSLD. His last shift for a while. To tell the truth, I don’t know if he will return to his job as a bachelor’s nurse, which he had been doing for 26 years. He said to me: “There, it’s too much, I can’t take it anymore, I’m no longer capable, it’s no longer care, stop ! “That evening, there was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Sixty elderly people to manage alone as a nurse in a CHSLD on two floors, with a COVID outbreak area and a second one in the making, in a dual role, that of a bachelor nurse – his initial position –, but also that of auxiliary nurse , because that evening, in a context of COVID and service reorganization, a nursing assistant was missing to manage the medical visit and take down prescriptions so that patients could have their treatments as quickly as possible. His only chance, that evening, was to have, for once, all the necessary beneficiary attendants.
That evening, he expressed his disagreement, because it was becoming redundant. Initially to his direct superior, herself a nurse, whose response was, before returning home: “Prepare for the most urgent”, “we do what we can”. Despite his disagreement, he ended his shift so as not to leave the patients alone.
He came home in a state oscillating between anger and dismay. Exhausted physically, but also mentally. I had never seen him like this.
You are alone, manage yourself
The next morning, he notified his agency and canceled all his shifts in this CHSLD. It had been going on for too long and he did not want to be complicit in the potential endangerment of patients or remedy the shortcomings of the system or risk his OIIQ permit.
He also wanted to save his mental health, which had already been damaged by the accumulation of ordinary failings. His agency, dissatisfied, imposed penalties on his last salary, because the deadline of the administrative protocol had not been respected. Simple like that. No HR management, just administrative management. He wrote them an email to question these penalties. Total silence. I am blown away. Not a phone call to find out how he’s doing, nothing. You are alone, manage.
But there is no time limit for “no longer being able” and falling into burnout, no time limit for saying ” stop to a system that endangers not only patients, but also caregivers who find themselves alone with their responsibilities as a member of a regulated professional order.
In both cases, whether at the CHSLD or at his agency, it seems that the situation has been trivialized on the pretext that “there is worse elsewhere”. No acknowledgment of the potential endangerment of patients or of the suffering at work that stems from deficiencies that have existed for some time.
Just silence and penalties.
Because, yes, when one denounces a situation that one finds intolerable, one becomes “the irritating one”, the one that one penalizes, because it comes to scratch where it disturbs. I am no longer surprised that caregivers are silent, afraid to testify. I am sure that many will recognize themselves, alas. I had to insist that my spouse contact his professional order. Because there, it exceeds the limits. But they replied that there was nothing they could do. They protect a priori only patients. I discover this with astonishment, I thought that they also protected nurses and nurses who were members of their order.
Speaking, my spouse risks penalties on several levels. The financial penalty from his agency for breach of contract – a sanction already in progress. But also potentially a suspension from his agency – very likely – and perhaps even from the CIUSSS in the region where we live, because “tanning” is irritating.
This is why I prefer not to mention the name of the place where we live, that of the CHSLD and the first name of my spouse, because I know that talking has consequences. He is not the first to whom this has happened. I am terrified to write this myself. Self-censorship to protect my spouse. It’s crazy to come to this when you think about it.
The story repeats itself
Ten years ago, my spouse left the public system to go to an agency so that he could manage his time as he wished. But even so, our health system manages to burn its world. In the public system as in the agencies, the institutional mistreatment continues, the silence makes its way, the suffering at work increases, the carers leave the ship little by little. And to compensate for the pain and shortcomings, we imagine that bonuses will work miracles, that going to look for new caregivers elsewhere will be enough?
My spouse will be among those leaving the ship.
Very banal, after all. But I don’t want to get used to trivializing his suffering and that of all his healthcare colleagues. Yes, “there is always better elsewhere”, but this argument is worth nothing, apart from anesthetizing our capacity to be indignant, to testify.
I do not want to silence the devastating effects of our health care system on caregivers, and in particular on my spouse, whom I have seen for too long trying to stay the course to take care of his patients with dignity and ethics, to keep humanity in caring for and relating to others.
Last week, he capitulated. He now has anxiety attacks when he thinks about work. He also confessed to me that he sometimes cried at work. One more burnt, sad report.
Yesterday he made an appointment with his doctor. Diagnosis: burnout. Result: work stoppage. And after ? I do not know.
It’s 3:57 a.m. and I’m going back to bed. Always with my distress and my anger, and with all this mixture of emotions that prevented me from sleeping, but with the hope that my testimony will serve to highlight the suffering of many caregivers and the distress of those who love and who share their life.