Pre-Hospital Sector in Quebec
Urgent Need to End Around-the-Clock On-Call Scheduling for Paramedics
Paramedics in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Northern Quebec protest
untenable shift scheduling, March 16, 2022.
Félix-Antoine Lafleur is President of the CSN Central Council of Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Northern Quebec. TML Daily is posting an interview with him conducted by Workers' Forum.
Workers' Forum: Recently, the media spoke of a real explosion of ambulance service breakdowns in Abitibi-Témiscamingue over the past few years. Can you tell us more about this?
Félix-Antoine Lafleur: Our experience in the field confirms that service disruptions are more and more frequent.
To understand the situation, you have to know that in our region, we're still working with around-the-clock on-call schedules, as opposed to hourly shifts. With the former, paramedics remain on call for seven consecutive days, 24 hours a day. They go about their daily lives, but must remain within a five-minute distance of their ambulance. In large centres, paramedics are on an hourly shift, stay in their ambulances, ready to respond to calls. They have a normal shift, with a start and an end time.
Also as far as service disruptions go, in Northern Quebec we're experiencing a labour shortage in many areas. For young paramedics, the coming generation, around-the-clock on-call schedules are not appealing, as they are forced to commit to long periods of availability. They want to have more flexibility and start a family. When you have to be on-call seven days a week, never knowing if you're going to be home for supper, work-family balance becomes very difficult. Paramedics are not attracted to those hours. So there are paramedics who, even though they are trained in the region, leave to work elsewhere where there is an hourly schedule, in order to have a family life.
All of this leads to situations of service disruptions because there's a lack of paramedics because of unattractive conditions. This creates an overload on those remaining.
We recently learned that every month, at the Dessercom ambulance company in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, there's a daily shortage of around 10 paramedics for the provision of basic services. That workload is assumed by the other paramedics. However they have limits -- there are limits to the amount of overtime one can work, to one's ability to physically move around a region. The vacant positions are being filled by paramedics who are already on a full-time schedule, so we are unable to fill the entire demand for services.
This has been going on for a long time. It's absurd when you consider that those on-call schedules were implemented in Quebec in 1989 as a temporary measure, until hourly schedules could be implemented everywhere. That was 33 years ago! Currently, the proportion of paramedics on on-call work is approximately 66 per cent of the total number of paramedics in the region. The rest, about one-third, are on hourly schedules.
There are many resource extraction jobs in the region, where the wages are higher than what paramedics are paid. So it's normal for them to wonder if it's worth going through all this, where the job is one of emergencies with known problems associated with one's psychological health. It's a very difficult job. It's possible to deal with these problems, through support of course, however many feel that they do not want to expose their family to this, so that quality family life is ensured.
The union movement has long been calling for a conversion to hourly shifts. It's true that hourly schedules require more staff, about twice as many as those working on-call schedules. However, hourly schedules attract paramedics. We need to invest, work out well-documented plans with clear timelines, so that the paramedics stay with us, so that early on in their career they know that they will be able to work on an hourly basis.
WF: Why do you think there's so much opposition to implementing hourly schedules everywhere?
FAL: The issues are economic. Staff costs would double, but that would be the only variable affected. The rest doesn't change. The vehicle, the equipment used, etc., remain the same.
And we're not asking for this conversion to be done in a cavalier manner, overnight. The issue is to have a plan that is clear. The labour shortage is not going to go away overnight. More and more labour will be needed to make the conversion. First we must put in place the winning conditions to make the conversion a reality. Instead of looking for excuses and saying it will never work, let's put the measures in place to ensure that we have enough staff.
At the heart of all this is an ideological debate. We have to decide what is going to take precedence, pure economic profitability or a service that's fair for the entire population. We must stop seeing the pre-hospital system as only an expense. We must see it as an investment towards the well-being of the society.
(Translated from the original French by TML. Photo: FSSS-CSN)
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 63 - December 21, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmld2022/Articles/D520633.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca