February 6, 2018

President of the Syndicat des professionnelles en soins de la Capitale-Nationale (FIQ-SPSCN), Patricia Lajoie, accompanied by FIQ Vice-President Linda Lapointe, union reps and members, addressed today the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale’s president-CEO, members and board of directors to denounce healthcare professionals’ unbearable working conditions and the employer’s failure to take action.

The goal of the union’s intervention was to make a heartfelt plea on behalf of the Capitale-Nationale’s healthcare professionals who are shouldering excessive workloads and out of steam. “Despite several interventions with the employer, nothing, unfortunately, has been done to improve our members’ work conditions and in turn the quality of care they’re able to give their patients,” said Ms. Lajoie. For a year now, the union was supposed to work with the employer to increase full-time positions, an agreement that was concluded as part of the last collective agreement, and despite multiple requests, it still hasn’t begun.

“Our members do a lot of mandatory overtime, they regularly deal with excessive workloads and are put in situations where they’re simply unable to provide, safe, humane, quality care to patients,” added Ms. Lajoie. “Their managers even tell them to prioritize their tasks, which means that some essential tasks, which already represent a heavy work load, are neglected. Neglecting these tasks can put patients in dangerous situations. And who would be to blame if something happened to a patient? Our members, of course. It’s a stress that is added to their excessive work load, which contributes to the feeling of being unable to fully accomplish their work,” explained the FIQ-SPSN president.

“The government is currently asking healthcare professionals to do more with less, in other words, provide care over a longer work shift to patients who need increasingly complex care and fill out reports with less staff and money,” pointed out FIQ VP Linda Lapointe. “The managers are using the health network’s healthcare professionals’ compassion and dedication to meet objectives imposed by the Health Minister, but our members are worn thin and it’s time to take action. The safe healthcare professional-to-patient ratios that we want to implement in Quebec are key to making the health network attractive for nurses as well as to ensuring the longevity of the health system,” said Ms. Lapointe.

Last week the union started circulating a petition among its members and has collected over 1,000 signatures to date. It plans to give the petition to the CIUSSS’s management in the next few days.