Quebec launches project to convince immigrants to become orderlies

Quebec is launching a pilot project to woo immigrants into becoming orderlies in the province’s labour-strapped network of longterm care homes.

Quebec Minister of Immigration Simon Jolin-Barrette made the announcement Thursday, one day after Premier François Legault announced plans to launch a massive recruitment program to add 10,000 workers to the network.

Jolin-Barrette said existing programs, including the controversial Quebec Experience Program, have failed to respond to the particular needs of the health care system.

Since 2013, only 115 new arrivals have actually become orderlies. The goal of the new program is to produce 550 more CHSLD workers a year.

Under the pilot program, candidates who will have worked in the health network in their country of origin for two years and agree to work two years in the system here will have a better chance of obtaining their citizenship.

The exact details of the program will be announced at a later date with plans to advertise it in foreign countries.

“I have high hopes this new program will be more attractive,” Jolin-Barrette said.

A report issued by the Canadian Armed Forces based on their first-hand experience helping in the network highlighted the flaws in the system, from a lack of full-time trained workers to shortages in protective equipment and deficient infection-control procedures.

More than 60 per cent of Quebec’s COVID-19 deaths have taken place in the centres.

Ottawa and the Canadian Armed Forces have started looking for an exit strategy amid talks with Quebec about the continued provision of military personnel to long-term care homes.

Legault asked the federal government this week to keep hundreds of Armed Forces members in about two dozen long-term care facilities until September while the province looks for civilian support workers to replace them.

The troops have been assisting in Quebec since April following an earlier request by Legault as outbreaks of COVID-19 ripped through some of the province’s nursing homes. Military members were also deployed to a handful of long-term care facilities in Ontario.

While retired military officers say the Forces can and will continue to work in long-term care homes if required, they noted the military does not have a glut of medical personnel — and those it does have are primarily focused on caring for other troops.

“Even in peacetime, they are fully occupied,” retired commodore and surgeon general Hans Jung said.

“So when they are removed from that environment to go to an area to support non-military, then who’s there to look after the military members on the base? So that is an equation that has to be carefully (managed) because you are kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul here.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau underscored that deploying troops into nursing homes was never intended to be a long-term solution and that the federal government is looking at helping provinces get a handle on the crisis themselves.

“It is a stopgap measure that is there to help out because our Armed Forces have the fundamental role of serving Canada and protecting Canadians,” Trudeau said.