The Montreal School Services Center (CSSDM) is backtracking. It will now allow teachers to wear their own N95 mask.
Posted at 11:35 a.m.
Updated at 11:59 a.m.
In an email sent to staff members on Monday evening, the service center announced that “wearing the N95 mask will be accepted [dès mardi] for the personnel who decide to obtain them”.
It also invites staff to view a video capsule shared by the Ministry of Education explaining how to install and properly adjust the N95 mask.
Until now, the CSSDM required their employees to use the personal protective equipment provided by the Ministry of Education, namely procedure masks.
Tuesday, the president of the Alliance of the professors of Montreal was delighted with this “small victory”. “We managed to convince the service center to accept the N95s or the higher quality masks, but we had to fight for that too because we were told that the instruction that comes from above was to only provide school masks,” said Catherine Beauvais-St-Pierre.
However, she persists in believing that the employer should itself provide N95 masks to teachers who want them. “The employer has a responsibility with regard to the health and safety of its personnel,” she says.
In the office of Education Minister Jean-François Roberge, school service centers were asked on Tuesday to let teachers who want to wear an N95 mask do so. The ministry still does not recommend it in regular classes (the N95 mask is provided to teachers in special classes and schools), but if teachers want to wear it, “let them wear it”, says Florent Tanlet, minister’s press secretary Roberge.
Elsewhere in the province
Several school service centers across also allow wearing their own N95 mask.
This is the case of the Center de services scolaire de la Capitale, where a teacher who wishes can obtain “N95 masks that comply with the applicable standards in force, wear them and replace them according to the manufacturer’s standards and good practices in matters”, indicated the communications advisor, Marie-Claude Lavoie.
The Draveurs school service center, in Outaouais, the Marie-Victorin school service center and the Grandes-Seigneuries school service center (CSSDGS), on the South Shore of Montreal, as well as the Laurentides school service center also allow teachers to wear their own N95 mask.
For its part, the Lester-B. -Pearson, in Greater Montreal, will continue to apply government and Public Health directives. Since the N95 masks have not been provided by the government, teachers will have to continue wearing the medical masks provided by the ministry.
Efficiency
With the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, the Centrale des unions du Québec (CSQ) and its school sector federations are imploring the government to make N95 masks available to education personnel who request them.
Quebec reserves this type of mask instead for the staff of schools and specialized classes.
Last Thursday, a study by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) concluded that the medical mask and the N95 mask are both effective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19.
For its part, Ontario announced last week that it would provide access to more than 10 million N95 masks without fit testing for all staff in the education and child care sectors. . This shipment is in addition to the four million three-ply cloth masks recently shipped for use in schools.
With Marie-Eve Morasse