March 14, 2022

The healthcare professionals, members of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec | Secteur privé–FIQP, on the front lines of residential accommodation and care for the elderly, patients and their families are waiting for immediate and concerted measures to be implemented to ensure care and services in CHSLDs. Weeks after the tabling of the reports of the Ombudsman and the Health and Welfare Commissioner, the FIQP is disappointed that no concrete measures have been implemented to bring about the radical transformation of the vision of care for the elderly demanded by the latter. The FIQP president, Sonia Mancier, demands that an action plan on the care and services in long-term residential accommodation which stems from the policy made public a year ago, be tabled as soon as possible.

The president of the FIQP is clear: effective measures for acting quickly on the attraction and retention of the workforce are known to government authorities, as they have been the subject of consensus among health network partners and external observers. Implementing safe healthcare professional-to-patient ratios and promoting the value of caregiving staff, through exercising their scope of practice completely, is high on the list of priorities. Without these measures,  it is unthinkable to expect to curb or even eradicate the use of employment agency personnel.

Moreover, the government cannot do without provincial and local workforce planning including a robust attraction-retention plan to plan for future residential accommodation needs.

A contractual agreement for private CHSLDs put off indefinitely?

Furthermore, the president of the FIQP urges the Minister for Seniors and Caregivers, Marguerite Blais to take immediate actions on the care and services in residential accommodation and make public the timetable and conditions for three private CHSLDs as part of the pilot projects announced with great fanfare last September. The objective of this process is to ensure that the quality of care and services in CHSLDs are similar. Sonia Mancier stated that the projects are confidential and slow to come to fruition, despite firm commitments from Minister Blais. Impatient, the president of the FIQP wonders why the delays are unjustifiably long.

The right of the elderly to equitable delivery of care across the province 

For the president of the FIQP, a patient in public, subsidized private or private residential accommodation needs the same quality of care. Introducing a law on safe ratios is certainly one of the best ways to achieve this goal. Two years after the health emergency was declared and the tragedy we saw in the residential accommodation setting, the FIQP believes that the CISSSs and CIUSSSs must also be proactive to ensure monitoring of the quality and safety of the care given in their territory.

“The government has not announced how it intends to achieve the level of quality of care required by the health of the persons accommodated in residential accommodation. Why wait any longer when the consensus is clear? The Ombudsman and the Health and Welfare Commissioner, as well as the unions and associations in the private and private subsidized institutions are demanding immediate actions to ensure the quality of care for the elderly. The ageing of the population calls for additional and recurrent investments in residential accommodation and care for the elderly. Are we supposed to believe that the CHSLDs have been abandoned? The lack of political will to address this crisis begs the question. It is up to the government to justify its refusal to break with the culture of inaction…”

Sonia Mancier, President, Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec | Secteur privé–FIQP