2023-10-30 23:41:29
A few thousand nurses gave the Minister of Health a taste of Halloween by organizing a “horror march” in front of his offices in La Prairie on Monday evening.
Organized by the Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ), the demonstration began in the Parc des Jésuites, on Boulevard Taschereau, closed for the occasion between Boulevard Matte and Rue de la Levée. The participants then walked towards the office of Christian Dubé, located a few steps from the park.
“If our working conditions are not better, there will be no one left in the health field. We are hitting a wall,” exclaimed a demonstrator interviewed by TVA Nouvelles.
The people present on site explained that they were there to receive better salary increases than those proposed, but also to oppose the government’s desire to be able to move staff more easily from one establishment to another, according to their needs. This desire will relegate the seniority, preferences and skills of nurses to second place, fears the union.
“The government is on the wrong track. We’ve been telling him for months. But he refuses to listen to us. What the government is proposing will deteriorate care for the population because the healthcare professionals will all run for the exit door,” commented the vice-president of the FIQ and co-responsible for the negotiations, Jérôme Rousseau.
FIQ members voted 95% last week in favor of a strike which might be limited. They will begin with a two-day strike on November 8 and 9.
Under a labor court ruling, nurses are required, despite their strike, to provide normal service in emergency and intensive care departments. Other departments will have to do, in part, without their presence. Thus, only 70% of the planned hours will be offered in operating theaters (80% following six days of strike), while 85% of the service will now be in care units such as pediatrics, hemodialysis or radiation oncology.
The FIQ represents approximately 80,000 nurses, practical nurses, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists.
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