Are there really 10,000 employees missing in the health network?
If we believe the premier, it could even be missing 20,000.
François Legault is saying to anyone who wants to listen that there were already 10,000 people missing in the health network before the crisis began, and 10,000 more added since then, bringing the number of absent employees to 20,000. Still, according to Mr. Legault, this number can be explained by fear of being in contact with COVID-19.
We already established in a previous article that it isn’t possible for a healthcare professional to be absent because of fear. This time, we decided to take a closer look at this number of 10,000 that the premier is putting out there, and that sometimes becomes 20,000 depending on his mood.
VériFIQation done
Despite many requests made by the FIQ to know the source of this information, there has been no clear answer. However, according to the data we have, it would be more like 6,449 people absent from the health network for one reason or another: preventive withdrawals (protective reassignments), chronic diseases, isolation, screening process and CNESST file. We are a long way from the number put out there by the premier.
Moreover, note that our data includes all employees absent from the institutions, whether they are cooks, nurses, orderlies, managers, technicians or others. Only physicians are not included.
To be able to have a more accurate picture of absences, a breakdown of the data by job title would have to planned, which is not the case now.