Nurses slam conditions at Île-Bizard nursing home and Lakeshore General
Health-care professionals exhausted, more need to be hired, union official says
Warning that “patients are in danger” at the Centre d’hébergement Denis-Benjamin-Viger long-term care centre in Île-Bizard, more than 500 nurses and other healthcare workers protested on Thursday outside the West Island health authority in charge of the nursing home. The demonstrators urged Health Minister Danielle McCann to intervene following an arbitrator’s decision in April ordering the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Îlede-Montréal to hire more nurses, auxiliary nurses and orderlies to improve the quality of care for the 125 residents living at the Denis-Benjamin-Viger CHSLD. Rather than follow the arbitrator’s decision, the CIUSSS decided to appeal it, union leaders said. “Instead of investing money in hiring more employees, well, they’re spending all their money on legal fees fighting the arbitrator’s ruling in court,” said Denyse Joseph, a vice-president of the province’s largest nurses’ union, the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ). “Nothing has been done and our health-care professionals are exhausted. There’s not enough of them to do the work and who’s paying for that in the end? It’s not only the professionals, but the patients. The residents are not getting the proper care right now because of a lack of professionals.” The noisy demonstration followed the release of provincial ombudsman Marie Rinfret’s report last week in which she used words like “mistreatment” and “deficient” to describe government-run nursing homes, known in French as CHSLDs. On Thursday, union leaders cited the report of an expert, Marie-Flore Beauport, whom they said concluded that the personnel at Denis-Benjamin-Viger cannot bathe the residents adequately or give them all their prescribed medication on time because of a shortage of staff. “Shame on you for squandering public funds,” FIQ president Nancy Bédard shouted into a microphone, which was set up outside the Lakeshore General Hospital, addressing the senior administrators of the West Island CIUSSS. A spokesperson for the West Island CIUSSS declined to comment on why the health authority has appealed the arbitrator’s decision, noting the case is before the courts. “The (West Island CIUSSS) takes to heart the well-being of its employees,” Ariadne Bourbonnière said in a statement. “We’re dealing with a situation of full employment in the health and social services sector. Nonetheless, we have hired 10 nurses in the past six months, which has allowed us to fill shifts up to 80 per cent. We’re continuing our efforts at recruitment.” “The priority of the West Island CIUSSS is to offer residents, users and patients quality care,” Bourbonnière added. Last Sunday, nurses at the Lakeshore staged a sit-in in the emergency room to draw attention to their “distress,” Bédard said. Bourbonnière responded that staffing levels are “adjusted according to the influx (of patients) in the ER.” Union leaders urged McCann, who was appointed health minister shortly after the CAQ won the Oct. 1 election, to get involved directly in resolving the crisis at Denis-Benjamin-Viger. “The government has to move, they have to stop saying they will do something and they have to act,” Joseph said, alluding to McCann and Marguerite Blais, the minister responsible for seniors. “It’s enough. Our professionals have been waiting for the past two years and patients are suffering.” McCann was unavailable for comment.