Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist
Union says four of six Pontiac techs still plan to leave
Quebec’s treasury board confirmed last week it will not be awarding equal bonuses to radiology technologists working in Pontiac, Wakefield and Maniwaki hospitals as it is offering to those in Hull, Gatineau and Papineau hospitals.
The news came on Thursday from the union representing radiology technologists in the Outaouais, the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS).
“The treasury board has said there will be no increase in the bonuses,” APTS Outaouais president Guylaine Laroche told THE EQUITY in a French interview, explaining the union had received the decision from the province that day. “We’re excessively disappointed by the answer but we remain available for negotiations.”
This summer five of the six full-time technologists working at the Pontiac Hospital applied for positions in Gatineau and Ontario when the Quebec government omitted them from its offer of a $22,000 bonus to technologists in Gatineau hospitals.
When it became clear many of the rural technologists were making plans to take jobs in Gatineau to get the bonus, the health ministry offered $18,000 bonuses to those in Pontiac, Wakefield and Maniwaki, an attempt to incentivize them to stay put.
But soon after that announcement, APTS confirmed the five Pontiac employees who had applied elsewhere still intended to follow through on their move.
Last month, Nicole Boucher-Larivière, director of CISSSO’s Pontiac service network, told THE EQUITY the government was still in negotiations with the union and that she was optimistic it would come around to awarding the full $22,000 to all radiology technologists across the Outaouais.
“We’re confident the discussions are going well so I’m still hoping they’re going to be able to resolve the difference,” Boucher-Larivière said at the time, adding she believes some of the technologists were waiting on the outcome of those negotiations before they make their final decision.
Boucher-Lariviére cancelled THE EQUITY’s scheduled interview on this matter following Thursday’s news.
On Tuesday last week, Minister of Health Christian Dubé visited the Pontiac Hospital and met with the technologists working there, a sign for many, including Laroche, that positive news might be coming.
“He went to meet with the technologists of Pontiac and Maniwaki, and we had hope that this meeting might influence the decision favourably, but unfortunately that was not the case,” Laroche said.
She said the treasury board didn’t give the union a reason as to why equal bonuses wouldn’t be offered to all technologists.
“What we are reading between the lines is that they don’t think the technologists are going to move to the urban hospitals,” she said.
Pontiac not heard, MNA says
In a post to X, formally known as Twitter, Minister Dubé said his visit to the Outaouais was one of “hearing the preoccupations of Outaouais partners,” but Pontiac MNA André Fortin, who met with the minister during his visit to the hospital on Tuesday, said Thursday’s decision leads him to believe Pontiac’s needs were not in fact heard.
“The very first thing he was told to do was equalize the bonuses in order to stabilize the teams and services available at the Shawville hospital and three days later his ministry turns around and denies that,” Fortin said.
“By refusing to offer the same bonuses across the region, he is pushing people to work in the city, and to the detriment of services here in the Pontiac.”
At a rally organized by local activism group Citizens of the Pontiac outside the Pontiac Hospital on Monday to protest the government’s decision, Laroche said four of the six full-time technologists in the Pontiac were still planning to leave for jobs that started Sept. 9, but that one applicant had changed their mind and now plans to stay in the Pontiac.
This leaves two full-time technologists and one part-time technologist to serve Pontiac residents, as well as those who come from the city to benefit from shorter wait times.
“Two point five workers to cover seven days a week, 365 days a year, day and night, it’s impossible to cover all of the work,” Laroche said, explaining the loss of four technologists – those responsible for running the machines that produce images interpreted by radiologists – would cause serious delays in critical services at the hospital across multiple departments.
She said the technologists’ collective agreement permits the employer, in emergency cases, to temporarily relocate employees to serve regions where there is a major break in services, only if no employees volunteer to relocate. She said it is usually the least senior employees who are relocated in these cases.
At the Monday rally about a dozen residents gathered with brightly coloured signs carrying messages demanding equal treatment of Pontiac’s technologists.
Citizens of the Pontiac spokesperson and organizer of the event Judith Spence said she still has hope the government might change its mind.
“To this date [the union] doesn’t have anything in writing. Until the paperwork is done, until it comes out officially . . . this is why we’re here. We want it to be heard and known that we care,” Spence said, noting she hopes the rally will get the attention of the decision makers in Quebec City.
“If you think you can just walk over the Pontiac, you’re totally wrong.”
Citizens of the Pontiac had previously organized a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the technologists, but has since dismantled this as there is no way for the group to legally transfer the money raised to the people it was supposed to support.
Spence said unless she can find a way to get the $4,000 raised thus far to the technologists in the next week, the money will be returned to the donors.