Taylor Clark
LJI Reporter
With a difficult summer on the horizon as staffing shortages plague the region’s hospitals, the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais (CISSSO) revealed a contingency plan was underway that could lead to site closures.
“The goal is to not have to use this contingency plan,” said chief executive officer Marc Bilodeau. “The goal is to resolve our activities to a level adequate to provide emergency care, but not have to embark on the contingency plan.”
The plan was revealed as part of the CISSSO’s announcement to reduce services to allow its limited staff vacation time this summer.
“My number one priority is to maintain access to service for any conditions that require a specific time to respond,” said Bilodeau. “I am confident that we have the resources in place to be able to respond to them during the summer.”
Non-urgent operations and medical imaging will bear the brunt of these reductions. “The goal, therefore, with our reduction measures is not to affect the 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week services that we have in our different environments, but to ultimately ensure the survival of Outaouais residents who are victims of accidents or who need urgent surgeries.”
The reductions were anticipated to only exacerbate Outaouais’ lengthy waitlists, but Bilodeau expected the region’s private clinics would be able to pick up the excess slack.
The decision to delegate thousands of surgeries to private clinics by the CISSSO has put the public agency in hot water. Researcher Anne Plourde with the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques noted the CISSSO was contributing to the crisis it currently found itself in by passing the buck to private clinics.
“The short-term gain made by the CISSSO on the strictly quantitative level of the total number of surgeries performed was to the detriment of the public sector, and the current situation in hospitals of the CISSSO demonstrates that the disastrous consequences of this strategy are already beginning to be felt,” wrote Plourde.
The chief executive officer assured that the Outaouais population was not in danger, as the measures in place would ensure essential services be provided. But in the long-term, Bilodeau said it was undeniable that solutions needed to be found.
“Please note that the Ministry of Health has been involved for several months already … The ministry is in solution mode with us. We are looking for medium and long-term solutions that will allow us to rebuild an adequate workforce to meet the needs of Outaouais. It won’t happen overnight.”
Photo caption: Chief executive officer of the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais Marc Bilodeau assures the population that Outaouais will be adequately served this summer despite the reduction in services.
Photo credit: Taylor Clark