Nurses Take Action in SevenHudson Bay Communities
On Thursday, January 19, nurses from the seven villages on the Hudson Bay coast in Nunavik in Northern Quebec held a sit-in to protest their untenable working conditions and the severe shortage of health care workers in their region.
At the end of the day shift at 5:00 pm, nurses from the seven communities refused to take on-call calls during the night. They were replaced by doctors, managers and agency nurses. In Nunavik, clinics are open during the day, but from 5:00 pm onwards, on-call nurses triage patients over the phone. The nurses are members of the Union of Nurses of Hudson's Bay (SNIIBH-FIQ).
The Inuulitsivik Integrated Health and Social Services Centre (CISSS) in Puvirnituq is the main service hub for the approximately 7,000 Nunavik residents living in the seven communities on the Hudson Bay Coast: Ivujivik, Salluit, Akulivik, Puvirnituq, Inukjuak, Umiujaq and Kuujjuarapik, where the sit-ins took place. Nunavik is the Inuit region of Arctic Quebec and is accessible only by plane, or by sea lift when there's open water.
Nurses are the backbone of the health care system in the region, especially in villages with no resident physician. Normally, 30 enlarged role nurses need to be in place, distributed between the Hudson Bay communities. But at times in summer 2022, the number of nurses dropped to as low as 13. An enlarged role nurse is a nurse with special training. The training allows them to work in rural and isolated areas and do things like make patient assessments and other actions that nurses wouldn't normally do.
On January 18, the nurses emailed upper management of the CISSS complaining about a situation that has been going on for years, notably the lack of staff, the disastrous impact it has on nurses and services, and the inaction of management. They had warned the Health Centre that if they did not receive a quick and adequate response to their demands, they would take action, which they did the next day by refusing to work their night shift. Among the most urgent demands was the elimination of shifts that can run up to 32 continuous hours, and often extend to 24 hours with barely eight hours of rest between shifts. The Hudson Bay coast is experiencing a severe shortage of health care staff, which is creating an extremely high workload for the remaining staff.
Instead of listening to the nurses' demands, CISSS management immediately went to the Administrative Labour Tribunal to force the nurses back to work. The administrative judge issued an order to return to work Friday overnight.
The SNIIBH immediately denounced the CISSS management for following the path of criminalizing the voice of nurses rather than seeking solutions with them that would improve their conditions and the services.
This article was published in
Number 2 - February 7, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10023.HTM
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