Emergency Rooms -- the Quebec Example
All-Out Assault on Workers' Right to Speak and Organize
An acute crisis is raging in hospital emergency rooms (ERs). The
following interviews focus on the situation in Quebec, but a similar
situation exists across Canada. The most visible sign of the crisis is
the shortage of personnel required to care for emergency room patients.
Patients are facing long waits in the ERs, leaving without being
treated, and the cuts and closures in the care units are such that even
admitted patients cannot be sent to the appropriate hospital ward and
have to stay in the ER. The situation became so critical in the
Outaouais that the Gatineau hospital's ER was completely closed for
several days at the end of June and patients in need of emergency care
had to
be diverted to emergency rooms in other hospitals in the region. The ER
reopened in July, initially offering services for some emergency cases
only, and is now open to all cases only from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm each day.
 The
shortage of nurses and other staff is the result of more than 30
years of the neo-liberal anti-social offensive by the rich and
successive governments against the health care system. The crisis has
been further
exacerbated in the context of the pandemic by the systematic use of
arbitrary powers such as Ministerial Orders that have attacked the
dignity, rights
and physical and mental health of those who care for and protect us.
These measures have led to illness and thousands of resignations.
Nurses are making it clear that the use of arbitrary powers against
them by the state and hospital administrations is one of the main
causes, if not the primary cause, of the loss of staff and their
non-replacement. The human factor is seen as a cost to be reduced and
human beings as troublemakers to be suppressed, voices to be silenced,
thus aggravating the crisis. Alongside these attacks on the workers,
attempts are made to impose a code of silence to stop health care
workers from speaking about these conditions. Recently
we have seen many employers, inspired by government's rule by decree,
take legal action against nurses who have staged sit-ins to say that
they are at the end of their rope and that staying on the job for more
hours puts their health and the health of patients at risk. They assess
nurses' actions within the narrow confines of what collective
agreements allow or do not allow (the same collective agreements that
the government has declared null and void), and deny that nurses are
exercising their right to conscience and to speak out about conditions
which endanger themselves and their patients. Meanwhile, avenues for
dialogue, negotiation and consultation are destroyed. The
nurses' actions bring into being new forms through which those who do
the work affirm their rights under today's conditions. It is their
human right to express themselves about the working conditions they and
the population require. It is their duty as well as professionals who
have a commitment to the well-being of the people. They are doing so
courageously and deserve our support.
Workers' Forum proudly salutes the emergency room nurses who
are playing a leading role in speaking up and proposing solutions to
resolve this crisis in a way that benefits the people. In this issue,
we publish three interviews with representatives of nurses' unions.
This article was published in
August 11, 2021 - No. 68
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08681.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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