Healthcare professionals’ only have so much patience
The CAQ government will release its first budget since its fall 2018 election on March 21. It will be an opportunity for Premier François Legault to fulfil the election promises he made to healthcare professionals and the Quebec population.
We asked the government to allocate 350 million dollars to continue funding the implementation of healthcare professional-to-patient ratios and tackle the mandatory overtime crisis.
The FIQ’s ratio projects have been implemented in several places in Quebec and the results speak for themselves: fully staffed teams stabilized by safe ratios, which reduce the work overload and improve health care quality. To the FIQ, it’s clear as day that safe ratios are needed throughout Quebec. Employers should be held accountable for delivering quality care, not healthcare professionals, and the best way to make this happen is to cement safe ratios in legislation.
The Legault government promised to make significant investments in home care and residential and long-term care centres, two sectors that suffered because of the Liberal government’s cuts. We are waiting, along with the public, for these promises to be fulfilled on March 21.
In the next budget, the government is also supposed to earmark funding to enable institutions to eliminate mandatory overtime, as promised by Health Minister Danielle McCann. It is unthinkable to ask you, as healthcare professionals, to continue to work in these conditions. If you would like to put pressure on the government, sign the petition on the National Assembly’s website to eliminate the use of mandatory overtime.
What you as healthcare professionals experience on a daily basis is intolerable. Your profession is important to you, and I know that you sometimes feel torn between your passion of caring for others and the unbearable conditions which you are forced to work in. You’ve been shouldering the weight of the health network for far too long and it is high time that the government take real action to change that.
You have been patient long enough, now it’s time for action!