Burnout: Strip promises a “new era” for the nurses

Photo Stevens LeBlanc
Gaétan Barrette anticipates that the ratios of nurses-patients who will be tested starting this summer will eventually lead to hiring “hundreds of people, maybe even thousands” in the health care network.

Patrick Bellerose

Thursday, 29 march 2018 15:51

UPDATE
Thursday, 29 march 2018 15:54

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Gaétan Barrette anticipates that the ratios of nurses-patients who will be tested starting this summer will eventually lead to hiring “hundreds of people, maybe even thousands” in the health care network.

The minister of Health and the president of the main union of nurses were all smiles on Thursday to announce the details of the implementation of the pilot projects on the ratios of professional care per patient.

For the moment, three projects were announced on the 17th that will begin across the province of Quebec by the fall. The Lakeshore general Hospital will test the ratios in medicine, while those in surgery will be evaluated on the CHAUR of Trois-Rivières. In a CHSLD, the pilot project will take place at the CLSC de Bagotville.

“Today, the ratios of nurse-to-patients in NURSING homes are 25 to 32 patients per nurse; in the evening, 50 to 64 patients per nurse; and by night, from 75 to 96 patients per nurse, has explained the minister Gaétan Barrette. And then we will begin our first projects with ratios of 20 to 27 patients per nurse day; 25 to 32 patients per nurse at night; from 37 to 44 patients, less than half of patients, by night nurse.”

The details for the other pilot projects are not yet known : Quebec and the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) have negotiated until the wee hours of the morning on Thursday to reach this agreement.

Cry from the heart of a nurse

The question of the ratios of nurses-patients has resurfaced in the news last January when a nurse in a CHSLD, Emily Ricard, has launched a cry from the heart on Facebook. The young woman said she was exhausted after being busy from 70 to 76 patients during his night shift.

Once the ratios ideal defined, these become now a ministerial directive to reduce the burden of nurses. “It is difficult to imagine that it does not lead to hiring. […] There is talk of hundreds of people, maybe even thousands of people,” says Gaétan Barrette.

The minister emphasized that the cost of these hires massive “will probably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars”. These are, he says, are already provided for in the last budget, Leitao.

The minister Barrette rejects, however, the proposal of the FIQ register of the future ratios in a law.

More details will follow…