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Public Sector Workers in Quebec Present Their Concerns and Demands Support the Nurses for Speaking Out About Deteriorating ConditionsDisciplinary measures, including suspensions, continue to be taken by the authorities of the Integrated Health and Social Services Centres against nurses who speak out publicly against the deterioration of working conditions and patient care within their sector. A few days before Christmas, a psychiatric nurse with the Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre-University Health Centre of the Eastern Townships was suspended without pay for a period of three weeks for speaking out on a social media platform against the deteriorating conditions in his department. The suspension was widely publicized and the nurse's colleagues and patients collected money to make up for his loss of income. His union, the Union of Care Professionals of the Eastern Townships (FIQ-SPSCE), which is part of the Quebec Inter-professional Health Federation (FIQ) filed a grievance against the suspension. The President of the FIQ sent a letter to the institution's management and to Quebec's Health Minister, requesting that such practices -- which nurses refer to as "omerta" (a mafia code of silence) in the health network -- be immediately ended and that measures be taken to significantly improve conditions in the health sector. In particular, the FIQ is recommending that health care professional-to-patient safety ratios be established immediately to improve those conditions.
According to the media, several of the document's clauses relate to patient record confidentiality, with articles taken from the Act Respecting Health Services and Social Services and the Act Respecting Access to Documents Held by Public Bodies and the Protection of Personal Information. One clause also requires that all new employees make the following commitment: "Not to disseminate to the media and social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) any information that goes against the interests of the establishment, any confidential and sensitive information on the CIUSSS de l'Estrie-CHUS." Management issued a press release in which it affirms that the form "is a tool of the establishment to make sure that employees are aware of the obligations coming from all sources." It states that "employees are completely free to express themselves publicly as long as the initiative is taken in full respect of patients, their families and colleagues." The measures being taken to criminalize nurses and other health care workers for upholding their professional duty to defend the integrity of their working conditions are unacceptable. Making employment conditional on signing clauses which compromise one's conscience is equally unacceptable. More and more places are claiming that they are defending their "brand," their "reputation" and that when workers speak out about their working conditions it harms their reputation. This can only be for insidious purposes given that it is the employers which are primarily responsible for working conditions, not the workers who can only uphold what is already there. On top of this, the employers act in a manner which undermines the unions. They tend to take on employees one-on-one and each employee is left to fend for themselves to deal with intimidation and their defence.
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It was recently
revealed that shortly before the nurse was
suspended, another nurse from the same
institution had been suspended, without pay, for
four weeks for speaking out on social media.
According to news reports, the nurse requested
that the suspension not be publicized. According
to the FIQ, this is the first time that
suspensions without pay have been implemented at
the regional establishment. Neither of the
nurses received any verbal or written warning, or other
graduated measure in their file prior to their being suspended without pay.
