Quebec promises 'mammoth' changes to public health-care system

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dub has given himself a year to fix staffing shortages in the province's beleaguered health-care system.

In a speech delivered atthe Coalition Avenir Qubec youth caucus on Saturday,Dubsaid he wants the network to undergo "mammoth" changes that would reform several areas.

In addition, hesaid he wants to find waysto attract nurses back to the public system, which now has about 4,000 nursing positions to fill.

"My mission is to make health workers feel proud of the health network and for them to want to stay in it, or come back to it," Dubsaid.

Earlier this month, at a COVID-19 update for the province, Premier Franois Legaultannounced his government's intention tocreateincentives for nurses who had left the public system to return.

He said the government is trying tocome up with ways to convince people who have left the profession to come back, by potentially introducingincentives including increasing pay and improving working conditions.

At the CAQ youth meeting, Dub didn't provide many details about what the changes or measures would be.

But he saidhe wants to tackle other sore spots soon, like forced overtime and the "massive"use of private staffing agencies.

He added that in the "mammoth" bill he is planning to table this fall, he wouldn't tear down and rebuild the bureaucratic structures, like the Quebec Liberal government was heavily criticized for doing in 2015.

Breaches to services

On Thursday, another Quebec hospital said it had to close its ER overnight as six out of 10 nurses scheduled for the shift had not showed up due to exhaustion.

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In and out of the system: Quebec nurses struggling to keep up with demands

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Two nurses, one just entering the field, and the other who left due to harsh conditions, weigh in on why the public system is losing employees so rapidly.

The ER at Surot Hospital in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield was already running on a shortage of nurses, typically needing 14 of them for the overnight shift.

The head of the union representing nurses in the region, Mlanie Gignac, said one of the nurses had recently been forced to work four 16-hours shifts in a row.

Surot wasn't the first ER in the province to close temporarily, curtail hours or operate at more than 200 per cent capacity due to a lack of personnelsince the beginning of the pandemic, as nurses decryhow dismal working conditions have become.

'Holding by a thread'

Dr. Abdo Shabah, aQuebecemergency physician on the board of directors for the Canadian Medical Association, says he's never heard of such strain on the network.

"The health-care system is actually holding by a thread," Shabah said, noting any decisions about major changes need to be made with caution because of the "unprecedented levels of stress and burnout."

"Hopefully those changes will have a great impact on the health-care system, but we're actually in the middle of crisis and any change will come and put a little bit more burden on the system."

Shabah isn't the only one wary of reforms. Amy Ma, the secretary of the patients' committee of the McGill University Health Centre, says changes are "overdue and necessary" but have to be carefully thought through.

"Any reforms to the health workforce must absolutely be centeredaround the needs of the most marginalized we're talking about racialized communities, Indigenous people and peoplewith disabilities, to name a few," Ma said.

She said the backlog of elective surgeries is of several thousandat the MUHC alone, and that it includes some from the beginning of the pandemic.

"The pandemic has just blown everything up," she said.

Shabahsaid more and more COVID patients are taking up services, and putting pressure on emergency rooms. He urged people who have been hesitant to get vaccinated to do so.

"Get your shot because this will save your live, savethe life of your loved ones and save stress on the system," Shabah said.