In order to protect the population and curb the exodus of personnel, emergency doctors from Outaouais are imploring the Minister of Health to offer the same salary conditions to health professionals as those in Ontario.
“Without your intervention, it is no longer possible to ensure the safety and well-being of the population of Outaouais. Citizens of Outaouais should not be penalized because they live near Ottawa. It’s a question of life or death,” wrote the head of the CISSS emergency department of Outaouais, DD Christal Dionne. She was speaking to Minister Dubé on behalf of emergency doctors in the region.
She believes that patient care has deteriorated in recent years, in particular because of “the significant shortage of nurses” and “delays in access to the emergency room for laboratory tests and imaging”.
She also denounces the massive exodus of workers to Ontario, where salary and working conditions are “much more attractive”. “It is no longer possible for our teams to compete with our neighbor. » The doctors are calling for the immediate intervention of Minister Dubé.
“The population is in danger”
The DD Dionne maintains that the critical situation prevailing in Outaouais “is no longer tenable” and that “the population is in danger.” She emphasizes in particular that there is no longer access to imaging in the emergency room of the CLSC of St-André-Avellin, that the scan at the Papineau hospital is partially functioning and that the mobile unit of IRM was closed in Gatineau.
In addition, three technologists from the regional secondary trauma center in Hull recently announced their departure. “This critical situation will inevitably cause a breakdown in imaging service in the facility which receives traumatology, neurology, neurosurgery and cardiology,” indicates the DD Dionne.
She recalls that in 2020, a death occurred barely 2.5 hours after the scan at Hull hospital was broken. “Operating on an emergency without imaging capabilities is simply impossible,” she maintains.
As of April 15, the emergency occupancy rate in Outaouais stood at 140%.
