Crisis in nursing: the PQ asks for an emergency fund

Photo Simon Clark
The vice-head of the Parti québécois, Véronique Hivon, and spokesperson on health, Diane Lamarre

Patrick Bellerose

Tuesday, the 6th of February 2018 11:42

UPDATE
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 12:53

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The government Couillard must unlock “a few tens of millions of dollars” to resolve the crisis of burnout, which is shaking the middle of the nurses, says the Parti québécois (PQ).

“What we ask is that the government release immediately a budget margin adequate to allow you to have interesting jobs, open to nurses, nursing assistants and of course the attendants also, but for the nurses, nursing assistants, there are interesting jobs that are not in a situation of constraint, in a situation where they expose themselves to the additional time required,” said Tuesday the spokesman of the parti québecois in health, Diane Lamarre.

The member for Taillon points out that there are currently “employed in distress” and “vulnerable patients”.

In addition, the PQ advocates a revision of the ratios, as requested by the Federation interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ). “It is absolutely necessary to improve the number of available professional per patient,” says Diane Lamarre.

“The current environment shows us that there are not enough nurses per patient group, then it is absolutely necessary to enhance the proportion of nurses to have more nurses, auxiliary nurses for a number of patients, according to the complexity of these patients”, she adds.

Also, the PQ will leave Tuesday, when the parliament returns to Quebec, a motion without notice in order to denounce “the overload of work of nurses, nursing assistants and beneficiary attendants”, in addition to asking “the government to add immediate staffing to address this crisis.”

Québec solidaire supports

Speaking a few minutes later, Québec solidaire, is also said to be in favour of an injection of funds to create positions for additional nurses.

This would have the effect of reducing the number of patients per nurse, allowing you to create working conditions more attractive to fill the jobs currently left vacant.

“I understand very well the nurses who can’t, logically, humanly, type five working days with the heaviness of the task that awaits them”, argues the mp solidaire Amir Khadir.

Meeting Module-FIQ

The minister of Health, Gaétan Barrette, must meet with representatives of the FIQ Tuesday to 16 h, after a week of turmoil in the folder of the nurses.

It all started with the cry of the heart of a nurse on Facebook, Émilie Ricard. The young 24 year old woman said she was exhausted after a night of having to take care of more than 70 patients. The nurse also declared not to have the capacity to take care of patients properly.

In parallel, the nurses in the various institutions in Quebec launched a movement of sit-ins to denounce the lack of resources, while the FIQ launched an offensive advertising on the Web.

The FIQ will benefit in particular the meeting with the minister Barrette to reiterate its request to create ratios of patients by health professionals.

In an interview with the issuance to The Game on Monday, the minister said it wanted “an open conversation” with representatives of the nurses. “I would tell you that currently it is not necessarily far away in the concepts, he added. There is no doubt, however, difficulties in the operation of any of that.”