By Trevor Greenway

Anglophone residents looking to navigate the province’s healthcare system won’t have to look far to find someone who speaks English at local CLSC clinics and hospitals. 

More than 1,000 healthcare workers in the Outaouais are now wearing yellow badges with the words, “Allo, vous parlez Anglais?” They are all bilingual employees and will get you the care you need, whether you speak French or English. 

“Just look for an employee with a yellow badge and directly go and ask them, ‘Can you help me?’” says Joanne Dubois, CISSSO’s coordinator for accessing English services across the region. She’s responsible for implementing the yellow-card system for anglophone services, something she said she saw her colleagues in Côte-Nord do with great success. “My role is to make sure that there’s access [to healthcare] for the English-speaking population,” she added. “Because there’s no language when it comes to your health.”

CISSSO’s yellow-card badge system is simple: anglophones needing help in their mother tongue no longer have to wander hospital hallways looking for the right examination room, elevators or even washrooms. All they will need to do is look for someone wearing a yellow badge. According to Dubois, those employees have volunteered to be bilingual representatives and are committed to helping anglophones navigate clinics and hospitals that do not have bilingual status. 

Dubois said the CISSSO has always had an English language coordinator, but she admitted that her role has become much more active and important with the adoption of Bill 96 – the province’s overhaul of the charter of the French Language, which restricts the use of English in government institutions. 

In July, the CAQ government published a health directive outlining, in excruciating detail, when English could be used in a health or social services setting. The directive suggested anglophones would be required to produce an English eligibility certificate to receive health and social services in their mother tongue. Anglo leaders decried that directive, and the CAQ quickly scrapped the 31-page document and replaced it with a new one in September, which clearly states that English residents are entitled to health and social services. 

Bill 96, now Law 14 after its adoption in 2022, still requires that all CLSCs without bilingual status adhere to the updated language rules, meaning no posted signage in English, no English pamphlets or resource information. 

But now, after launching the yellow-badge initiative in September, more than 1,000 CISSSO employees across the Outaouais are designated bilingual healthcare workers. Dubois said she feels the system will be a major stress reliever for mental health patients in particular. 

She said that anglophones could be in Maniwaki, Shawville or in the city when they need mental health support, but the region’s mental health hospital is in Hull, a predominantly French facility. 

“Already, you’re nervous, saying, ‘Oh, my god, nobody is going to speak English because we’re in Quebec and this law came in.’ Knowing that once you go into the building and find someone with a yellow badge decreases the stress level of the family that is going in to get an evaluation for their child.”

Dubois said she was not surprised at the positive response from staffers, as the initiative was offered on a voluntary basis. She said the high number of healthcare workers who want to help reinforces the Hippocratic Oath, a mantra doctors undertake to ensure that the “health and well-being of my patient will be my first consideration,” according to the oath.

Vigi Santé spokesperson Marcel Chartrand told the Low Down that while the initiative is a good move, he still finds it hard to accept that we’ve gotten to a point where we must identify what language we speak to get healthcare. 

He was impressed, however, with the number of workers who came forward to volunteer to wear the bilingual badges. 

“Well, at first, I was sort of ambivalent,” said Chartrand when asked his initial thoughts on the yellow badge system. “I said, ‘Oh, my God. Are we there? Now, we have to identify people who can speak to you. But I looked at it again, and I guess it’s a step in the right direction. And more importantly, there are over 1,000 employees who now have that card.” Chartrand said the initiative couldn’t have come at a better time, as it will “reinforce” anglo rights while the government continues to cut English services across the province. 

Vigi Santé owns and operates long-term care homes in the region and has also become a health watchdog and a leading voice for regional healthcare.

“It will reinforce the notion that it doesn’t matter where you go; you’ll be served in your language, contrary to that stupid directive that we saw a couple months ago,” said Chartrand. 

“Things are getting clearer, and anglophones can feel safe to go anywhere in the system and be addressed in their language and be understood and be served.”

Yellow cards good, but real issue is funding (SUBHED)

SOS Outaouais executive-director Jean Pigeon told the Low Down that while he sees the yellow badge initiative as a “step in the right direction,” he does have concerns that it’s not a mandatory requirement for healthcare workers. However, he said the initiative will remove some “tongue barriers” for English speakers in health settings.

“What I think is very important is accessibility,” said Pigeon. “Accessibility should be done in any way for anybody at any time – whatever language they speak, whatever religion they are, whatever race they are. Accessibility should be offered to 100 per cent of the clientele. So that’s a big responsibility of the healthcare system.”

However, Pigeon said he remains focused on a much bigger task – one that SOS Outaouais, a coalition of organizations and citizens who share concerns about the state of health and social services in the region, could make or break the Outaouais in the years to come: funding. 

According to SOS Outaouais, the region is facing a $181 million shortfall to be on par with other regions of the province. 

This underfunding and the lack of salary parity for Ontario and Quebec healthcare workers continues to plague the Outaouais region. 

“We’re faced with the underfunding, and we’re faced also with the fact that there are so very few healthcare workers and social workers in our system that we’re not even providing accessibility to these services, and that has nothing to do with the language we’re speaking or the colour of our skin or whatever,” Pigeon said.

According to SOS, the Gatineau emergency room is operating at less than 30 per cent capacity, while Hull’s ER is working with less than 50 per cent of its staff. 

Because of a lack of staffing, CISSSO paid over $14 million to personnel placement agency services to get more workers to the region from April to July of this year alone. The Gatineau operating room is at 25 per cent capacity, while the Hull operating room is at just 43 per cent capacity. 

This means that wait times for elective surgeries across the entire Outaouais region continue to be the longest  wait times in the province.