Quebec health care shuts out English-speaking communities

Bonus system for everyone except Shawville and Wakefield

Taylor Clark

Demands from Outaouais appeared to have been partially heard as the Government of Québec agreed to expand specific measures aimed at matching overall pay with Ontario to include medical imaging staff from the Papineau and Maniwaki hospitals.

The agreement between the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux and the provincial government was first announced at the end of April and was to only be offered to technicians at the Hull and Gatineau hospitals.

Similar to what was previously announced, the two-year incentive measures consisted of an annual lump sum of $22,000 for those committed to working an additional 2.5 hours a week and a 10 per cent increase in salary during the summer for staff in Gatineau, Hull, and Papineau. On top of the 10 per cent increase, technicians in the Maniwaki hospital would only receive $18,000 if they worked additional hours per week.

Pontiac MP and spokesperson for the official opposition André Fortin had already been critical of the “half measures” put forward by the province and was floored by the exclusion of the Shawville and Wakefield hospitals, stating the extension was “a slap in the face” to imaging technicians left at the wayside.

“As a region, we had clearly asked the CAQ government not to abandon Shawville, Wakefield, Maniwaki, and Papineau. Today, it’s as if their answer is ‘Ok, we’ll just abandon Shawville and Wakefield,’” Fortin wrote to social media.

The decision which Fortin deemed unjustifiable was predicted to destabilize the rural healthcare teams and continue to weaken care in Shawville and Wakefield.

Recently launched health coalition, SOS Outaouais has also claimed the expansion of the incentives still fell short.  “The current crisis of staff shortages in medical imaging is not limited to a few hospitals but affects our entire region,” Jean Pigeon SOS Outaouais spokesperson and Gatineau Health Foundation executive director wrote to Facebook.

With the incentives only expected to last for two years, the coalition called for lasting solutions, “not temporary measures that only delay the real problem.”

Pigeon pointed to the recent investment of $350,000 in recruitment subsidies to improve offers aimed at countering the exodus of technicians to Ontario. “That’s the community. The community donated $350,000 towards that, and we have our government that’s pretty shy, I believe, to give money from our taxes to come and support this initiative.”

The press release from the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux recognized the agreement was a step in the right direction but there was still a long way to go.

“(The government) must stop managing one crisis after another and instead tackle the problem of labor shortage in medical imaging globally. We must do real workforce planning and put in place solutions to restore the situation in the long term,” wrote Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux president Robert Comeau.

Photo caption: Pontiac MP and spokesperson for the official opposition André Fortin holds a press conference outside the Pontiac Hospital to condemn the CAQ government’s decision to only extend specific incentives to imagery technicians in the Papineau and Maniwaki hospitals.

Photo credit: Bonnie James, Pontiac Journal