(Quebec) The call for volunteers launched by the senior management of the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal to give air to the emergency personnel of Maisonneuve-Rosemont (HMR) and Santa Cabrini met with mixed success: the operation made it possible to recruit seven nurses and attract six volunteers from outside.
Shaken by a major crisis, the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal has launched a call for volunteers and caregivers from other health establishments to come and lend a hand to the emergency teams of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital – where 100 nurses threatened to quit in January due to difficult working conditions – and Santa Cabrini.
In terms of recruitment, the CIUSSS received seven applications from external nurses, one of whom has already started work. With regard to the call for help launched through the network, the CIUSSS received offers from only three organizations in the Montreal region representing a total of barely six nurses. Agency staff must be added to the teams to support them.
The appeal was mostly heard internally. According to the data provided by the establishment, some 173 CIUSSS employees, including 100 beneficiary attendants, 60 nurses and 13 nursing assistants, have agreed to provide occasional assistance to emergency rooms. You have to understand that these are employees who agree to lend a hand by providing a shift here and there.
“Among these people, nurses are currently in orientation and they will be able to contribute to shifts to help us meet the nursing needs in our emergency rooms”, explained by email the spokesperson for the establishment, Catherine Dio.
“The figures announced by the CIUSSS do not translate into a marked presence on the floor for the moment”, indicates for his part the president of the Union of healthcare professionals of the East-of-the-Island-of-Montreal. , Denis Cloutier. “We talk a lot about occasional reinforcements. If they are people who invest in the long term, that’s good, otherwise it won’t change much, ”he adds.
According to him, the situation remains fragile at the HMR emergency room. He argues, however, that “the clinical pressure” has diminished due to the fact that ambulances are still rerouted. “That’s what keeps it going,” says Mr. Cloutier, recalling that this is a special measure ordered in the wake of the nurses’ threat to resign in mid-January.
“These measures allow us to limit the pressure [aux urgences] of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital, but also that of the Santa Cabrini hospital, by reducing the level of traffic received in these two emergency rooms and by increasing the level of staff working in these two key locations”, says the CIUSSS.
The stretcher occupancy rate in the HMR emergency room was 102% on Thursday, according to Minister Christian Dubé’s new tool to find out the waiting time. The average length of stay for people waiting on a stretcher was more than 17 hours.
In Santa Cabrini, the occupancy rate of emergency stretchers reached 126% on Thursday.