Quebec’s appeal for help has been heard. The Canadian Red Cross will also come to lend a hand in the health network this winter, in the face of the unstoppable rise in COVID-19 cases.
The humanitarian aid organization had received a formal request from the government of François Legault the day before. He replied in the affirmative on Wednesday.
“It will take the form of service assistants that will be deployed in the network, particularly in CHSLDs”, underlined in an interview with The duty the director of communications for the Red Cross, Carole Du Sault. Experts in infection prevention and control will also be on hand.
About 300 employees will come to support the health system, which is partially reduced by staff absences. Last I heard, more than 4,000 network employees had taken sick leave because of a positive test or because they were waiting for a result. The Red Cross expects to finalize the dispatch of personnel “in the coming days”.
“That doesn’t mean December 25,” agreed Ms. Du Sault.
Troops will be dispersed throughout the network “as needed”. Most teams should, however, work in long-term care centers, less in vaccination and screening centers, she said.
The Red Cross has been contributing to the pandemic war effort since it arrived on the ground in the spring of 2020. However, at the last I heard only about a hundred working professionals. At the height of the first wave, more than 1,100 Red Cross employees intervened in Quebec, most of them in homes for the elderly.
The employees of the humanitarian organization are added to the injection of new personnel represented by medical specialists from Quebec and the soldiers of the Canadian Armed Forces.
A number ?
Faced with the rise in cases linked to the Omicron variant, the Quebec government has still not made public its needs for the winter. In her letter sent to the federal government on Tuesday, the Minister of Public Security, Geneviève Guilbault, did not quantify them.
His colleague in Health, Christian Dubé, spoke on several occasions in the last weeks of a shortfall of 500 vaccinators. But the unions in the health network report a shortage in almost all areas.
On Wednesday, the Federal Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, confirmed having received the request from the government of François Legault. But he doesn’t know what Quebec’s needs are either.
“We are in conversation with them for good [les] seize, ”he said during a press briefing with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Ottawa claims to have access to “limited” capacity. “We do not have infinite resources,” said Mr. Trudeau.
“The Canadian government also has responsibilities towards aboriginal peoples, and towards remote communities and certain territories in particular,” said Minister Duclos. [Puis] the provinces are all in the same or increasingly similar situation. “
Quebec reported a record number of COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, with 6,361 new cases.
With Marie Vastel