(Montreal) The FIQ fears that Quebec will go so far as to force nurses to change establishments, care units and even shifts, upon request, to fill staff shortages, regardless of their expertise and years. of experience.
The Interprofessional Health Federation, which represents 80,000 nurses, practical nurses, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists, expresses this fear after several negotiation sessions for the renewal of collective agreements with Quebec.
“These are the signals at the negotiating table. They keep coming back with this. It’s contemptuous and it shows that they don’t know the work of a nurse,” lamented Jérôme Rousseau, vice-president of the FIQ and co-responsible for the negotiations, in an interview.
The FIQ suspects Quebec of wanting to go further in terms of flexibility in schedules and workplaces, as well as in terms of the versatility expected of nurses.
“What the government wants to do is take, for example, a nurse who has worked in a CLSC for 15 years and send her to fill a hole the next day in surgery,” explained Mr. Rousseau.
“If I have a young mother who took a night shift and who has organized her entire life around her children and her night shift… If from one day to the next she is told “no, you , next week I will place you during the day, in a particular department, 75 kilometers from your home”, it will destabilize the healthcare professional a little,” summarized Mr. Rousseau.
Quebec actually stated that it wanted to review the organization of work to be more efficient, better respond to needs and priorities. But he did not give details as to how far he wanted to go.
For Mr. Rousseau, moving nurses from one establishment to another, from one care unit to another, without taking into account their expertise, to meet needs here and there, without there being an exceptional situation to justify such a movement, is equivalent to treating them like interchangeable pawns, “arms”.
” There are risks [à faire ça] » both for the public and for healthcare professionals, warns Mr. Rousseau.
“It will increase the departure of people from the network, because of these poor conditions, and that also results in poor care conditions. We are not able to treat patients well, because we do not know the clientele and the specialties to which we are sent,” he explains.
Not to mention, he adds, that the work colleagues are not the same, the equipment can differ from one establishment to another and the layout of the premises too.
Demonstration and update on negotiations
The FIQ demonstrates once again, Monday in Quebec at supper time, dissatisfied as it is with the negotiations for the renewal of collective agreements. One of its bodies is also meeting, Monday and Tuesday, to take stock of the negotiations.
The FIQ intends to prioritize its requests, to reduce their number – which it had already planned to do, before the president of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, asked all unions to do so. public and parapublic sectors.
“We were already reviewing our demands,” as unions always do during a long negotiation, said Mr. Rousseau.