Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist
GASPÉ – The Gaspé Peninsula Integrated Health and Social Services Centre (CISSS) assures that it will not close the 24/7 emergency rooms at the Grande-Vallée, Murdochville and Paspebiac CLSCs, despite their low attendance at night.
Martin Pelletier, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Gaspé Peninsula CISSS, emphasized that no such closures are being considered as the network scrambles to find $40.7 million in savings to meet a $535 million budget. “We are not there. We are really not there,” says Mr. Pelletier.
This CLSC emergency room question regularly comes up in the news. In 2013, before the creation of the Gaspé Peninsula CISSS, the former regional health and social services agency of the Gaspésie conducted a review that included the issue. It was mentioned in 2017 following the Barrette reform, which had once again caused discontent among the population.
“Can we review the use of resources from these less busy emergency rooms to help other busier emergency rooms at the same time?” wonders Mr. Pelletier, considering that a doctor and a nurse are on site while the volume of activity is lower.
“Another thing we can look at is: do we always need a nurse or could we use a nursing assistant in a network where there is not a lot of night volume? But (the nursing assistant) would be affiliated with a nurse who is already working (at another location) and able to be in contact if a case requires the judgment of a nurse. This is another example of transformation work,” he says. The union will have to be involved.
The overall labour shortage situation is forcing the region’s health network to explore this avenue. “We’re going to have to look. It’s not just a question of budget, it’s a question of survival and maintaining services and the ability to find resources to offer these services. Even if I had the budget, the problem is finding the resources. Changing our ways of doing things is essential to the survival and sustainability of services,” says Mr. Pelletier.
This hypothesis, raised following the Gaspé Peninsula CISSS board of directors meeting on November 28, is not being well-received by the Eastern Quebec Nurses, Auxiliary Nurses and Respiratory Therapists Union.
“It’s a complete rejection,” says union president Pier-Luc Bujold. “The population has the right to quality service, professional service and we cannot, to a certain extent, replace a nurse with a nursing assistant,” he adds.
He provides examples of administering medication in an emergency or managing triage, which could not be done by a nursing assistant.
“In terms of collective agreements, it doesn’t hold water and, logically, it doesn’t hold water to send a nurse from Grande-Vallée to work in Gaspé,” says the president.
According to him, these measures would not be attractive and could harm staff retention. “We have already expressed our concerns about this and the CEO tells us that nothing will be done in this regard without having discussions with us and that it holds water. For us, it doesn’t hold water,” says the union representative.
Former Gaspé Member of the National Assembly, Gaétan Lelièvre, who fought for the survival of the services in 2017 believes that the CISSS is not on the right track with the idea of changing the teams to offer these services.
Mr. Lelièvre notes that this is a security issue. “This is a decrease in the level of security of the population. Political and economic stakeholders must send a very clear message to Quebec: we do not accept these service cuts,” says the former minister responsible for the regions in the Marois government between 2012 and 2014.
He points out that health is a basic condition for regional development. “We know that the government has an $11 billion deficit to wipe out, but we cannot accept that this is in services as essential as a CLSC that serves communities 100 kilometres from a hospital. This is unacceptable,” continues the man who is now a regional development advisor.
For his part, Noël Richard, the mayor of Grande-Vallée, fears service disruptions in the emergency room if the CISSS was to go ahead with this idea. He notes that if a nurse has to go with a patient to the Gaspé hospital, the service would be in danger.
“Because we have a shortage of manpower, we would be in temporary service disruption. This is unacceptable,” thunders Mr. Richard. In his eyes, such a cut is non-negotiable, especially since several concessions have been made in recent years on health issues.
“The conversion of ambulance drivers from shift schedules to hourly schedules was not included in this program. We also made concessions on community dentistry, but I will not make any concessions on such an essential service,” added the municipal elected official.