Immediately filed, immediately denounced. Bill 15, which aims to reform the Quebec health system, arouses the dissatisfaction of the Federation of Medical Specialists of Quebec (FMSQ) and unions representing professionals in the network.
The FMSQ denounces the “counterproductive method” of Quebec, which wants to impose “specific medical activities” on medical specialists in order to improve access to specialized care in the various regions. General practitioners are already forced to perform them during their first 15 years of practice.
In a press release, the FMSQ deplores Quebec’s “attitude of confrontation”. “While this bill, the tabling of which had been announced several months ago, was to relate to the creation of the Health Quebec agency, the Ministry of Health and Social Services is taking the opportunity to insert measures a direct impact on the conditions of practice,” she writes.
According to the FMSQ, the government is trying “clumsily to evade the negotiation process”, in which the union of medical specialists says it participates “always in good faith”; the federation stresses “that it will not give up on respect for this fundamental right”. She also adds that it is “deeply unacceptable to suggest that medical specialists are no longer present in hospitals following 4 p.m.”.
The FMSQ recognizes that “changes are necessary within the health network”, but these must be made “within the framework of serious discussions and negotiations”, she says.
Merger of union certifications
Several health worker unions also denounce Minister Christian Dubé’s bill. The latter intends to merge the union accreditations of the public network, to reduce them from 136 to 4. This will have the effect of allowing a nurse to maintain her seniority even if she changes health establishment or place of practice.
The Quebec Federation of Labor (FTQ) believes that this is “a serious attack on the right of association”. In a press release, the Alliance of Professional and Technical Personnel in Health and Social Services (APTS) deplores the “lack of consultation with employees” and people in the field, as well as the centralizing effect of this reform. .
The healthcare professionals who left the private sector in recent months and years did so to have better working conditions, not because they lacked network seniority
In interview with The duty, the president of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) first indicated that several days would be needed to dissect this “mammoth” bill. “Does the bill have a positive effect for all healthcare professionals in Quebec? We are still analyzing this. What is the added value for them? Currently, I do not see it, ”thinks Julie Bouchard.
The president of the FIQ did not want to react to the question of union certification mergers. “The most important thing is really the working conditions of the healthcare professionals, and certainly not the union structure,” she affirms. When the time comes, we will do our job as we did in the last two reforms. »
According to her, national seniority will not solve the problem of shortage of nurses in the public network. “The healthcare professionals who left for the private sector in recent months and years did so to have better working conditions, not because they lacked network seniority,” she says.
The president of the Federation of Health and Social Services (FSSS-CSN), Réjean Leclerc, says he does not understand how the current reform will improve the lot of patients. “Everything that was announced today, I don’t know what will come of it, apart from shaking up the structure we’ve been brewing for more than 10 years, moving more and more towards the privatization of services, under pretext that the public does not work. »
