Health-care workers in Gatineau, Hull protest forced full-time hours
Nearly 100 health-care professionals gathered outside hospitals in Gatineau and Hull on Friday to protest forced full-time work and other scheduling changes imposed by the provincial government.
On Wednesday, the Centre intégré de santé et des services sociaux de l'Outaouais (CISSSO) confirmed it will be imposing a forced full-time schedule on nurses, nursing assistants, and attendants at the Hull and Gatineau hospitals.
Full-time staff are also affected by CISSSO's decision. Staff can now be moved from hospital to hospital at will, they may be forced to change schedules last minute or pick up additional shifts and work in departments they may not be trained in.
CISSSO's decision was made possible by a ministerial decree in March by the provincial health minister which allows the government to invoke measures like these to treat and protect against COVID-19.
The Outaouais region reported on Friday 34 new COVID-19 cases, 296 active cases, and 37 hospitalizations due to COVID-19.
In a written statement, CISSSO said the decision was made because of an increase in hospitalizations in recent days and that they will “try to use the ministerial order sparingly.”
CISSO also added that it's appealing to its employees' sense of duty. They are the “heroes of the CISSSO,” the statement said.
Loudia Ghars, 36, a full-time nurse at the Gatineau hospital, says that CISSSO should have consulted with nurses before imposing such extreme measures.
“I work as a full-time nurse and the fact is, they can change your shift, they can make you work nights or afternoons if they want,” says Ghars. “And they can also make you work in another unit that you're not used to.”
Denyse Joseph, vice-president of the health-care union Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), agrees that this is a particularly concerning issue.
“If I've been working for 15 years in an operating setting — I'm not capable of jumping into another unit within 15 minutes,” says Joseph. “As a professional, I should have minimum training in order to do that job, and if I don't I'm putting my license at risk and I'm putting the patient at risk.”
Alexandra Desbienns, 28, works part-time at the Hull hospital in the emergency department while also attending university. CISSSO's decision to force full-time work could interfere with her education, which is why she protested Friday.
“I think the population needs to know our frustration because it's not human to force people to work if they don't want to,” Desbienns says. “If people work parttime, it's because they wanted to or they have other jobs or they have children at home.”
Tracy Comtois-Silins, 28, has been a nurse at the Gatineau hospital for seven years and predicts that CISSSO is going to cause a worse personnel problem than the region already has.
“This is just going to make nurse anxiety and burnout skyrocket and personnel retention is going to go way down,” says Comtois-Silins.
“The problem of personnel and schedules has been here for many years, this is not a new thing,” she says. “The only reason this is happening is because CISSSO has gotten power because of the pandemic.”
Comtois-Silins has already begun looking for new work, as have many of her colleagues, she says.
Joseph says forced full-time must stop immediately because it's already forcing staff like Comtois-Silins to look for work elsewhere.
“If all the staff that are forced to work full-time decide to quit today, who is going to take care of the patients in Outaouais?” she asks.
In response to the possibility of staff quitting, CISSSO wrote that: “It is clear that we want the staff to stay with us. We understand that the situation is difficult and that it is disrupting their family organization.”
Ghars says that CISSSO's decision is both counterproductive and undemocratic.