Consequences of Ministerial Orders for Quebec Health Workers
- Pierre Soublière -
The Quebec government's Ministerial Orders
within
an overall state of emergency have given Quebec
employers in the health
sector a free rein over workers' working
conditions. Even before this
leeway, employers in seniors' homes, in hospital
and health care in
general were extremely abusive, some examples
being the use of
mandatory
overtime, staff mobility -- which in itself is
proving to be a factor
for spreading the virus in various health
establishments -- lack of
personnel, etc. These are conditions which
health workers were
denouncing long before the pandemic. The most
recent move has been the
refusal, in a growing number of workplaces, to
allow workers to take
their
scheduled holidays. In one such establishment,
the summer holidays of
the entire staff of caregivers were cancelled.
In
one case, a nurses' aide's holidays were
cancelled at the last minute.
She states that if she refuses to work, she can
be fined from $1,000 to
$6,000. She adds: "We do everything we can to
save lives, to keep our
residents out of harm's way, to make sure
nothing happens to them, but
no one looks after us." Concerning this very
serious
problem of the need for health workers to take
some time to rest, Nancy
Bédard, President of the Interprofessional
Health Care
Federation (FIQ), states: "If everything depends
on our collective
efforts and solidarity to overcome this
situation, it's not by wearing
out its own workers that the government will
achieve this."
The Quebec government must stop considering
that workers
are expendable. It must acknowledge what the
workers have always
upheld, that the working conditions of the
health workers are the
conditions for the safety and health of the
people they are caring for.
Acting as generals sending unarmed troops as
cannon fodder into battle
is a thing
of the past. It is definitely not the way to
deal with problems such as
these which call for collaboration with
frontline workers who, for
their part, are more than willing to cooperate
on the basis of their
experience and their needs, especially in terms
of working in as safe
an environment as possible under the
circumstances.
What part of this does the government not
understand?
This article was published in
Number 35 - May 19, 2020
Article Link:
Consequences of Ministerial Orders for Quebec Health Workers - Pierre Soublière
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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