The government’s flying team, which is supposed to help hospitals in regions in difficulty, is slow to be deployed. Only one nurse is lending a hand on the Côte-Nord. Quebec promises to send orderlies to this region as well as to Abitibi-Témiscamingue “starting next week.”
Announced by Quebec in mid-May1the national flying team was due to take off on June 20. A first nurse was finally sent to the Côte-Nord2 five days later. Since then, no other members of the flying team have been deployed there. Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Outaouais have still not received reinforcements.
According to Québec, the Côte-Nord will welcome its “first orderlies next week.” Nurses will arrive in the region by the “end of July.” The same scenario, or almost, for Abitibi-Témiscamingue. About ten orderlies are expected “starting next week,” it is indicated. The “first nurses” of the flying team will start work in the region “by the end of July.”
Why is the deployment taking so long? In a press scrum in Baie-Comeau, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, pointed out in particular the sorting of the approximately 600 resumes received.
“I’m not criticizing our teams, but we’ve only had 150 in a month and I think we could go faster to make sure we understand what we can offer,” said Christian Dubé.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Health Minister Christian Dubé
The minister, who is visiting the Côte-Nord with the executive vice-president of Santé Québec, Frédéric Abergel, says that the Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (FSSS-CSN) is also delaying the deployment. “Our union leaders need to be a little more flexible,” he said. “We can’t try to resolve all the issues at once. We need to focus on resolving the flying teams. The FTQ has resolved it. The CSN hasn’t resolved it yet.”
Asked to react, the president of the FSSS-CSN, Réjean Leclerc, denied slowing down the process. “The negotiation is continuing, but it’s not true that it’s blocking anything because we’ve already made a commitment to send people,” he said. According to him, the “blockage” is due to the fact that the employer “hasn’t finished sorting through resumes and hiring people.”
Too little, too late
Jean-Sébastien Blais, president of the Interprofessional Health Care Union of Abitibi-Témiscamingue–FIQ, believes that the arrival of a few nurses by the end of July will have “no impact on the care provided to the population” in his region.
This is more resources than we would have needed for the summer period. We would have liked to have less overtime, less mandatory overtime during the summer. This was not the case.
Jean-Sébastien Blais, President of the Interprofessional Union in Health Care of Abitibi-Témiscamingue–FIQ
Let us recall that the FIQ is not participating in the flying team project, since it is still in negotiations with the government for the renewal of its collective agreement.
1. Read the article “A “public flying team” will be dispatched to the region”
2. Read the article “Quebec hires 23 people, first nurse sent to the North Shore”