By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
Officials from Santé Québec, the crown corporation established late last year to manage the province’s public health system, presented its overarching, provincewide plan to avoid summer service interruptions at a news conference in Montreal on June 17.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the public health system has struggled with a chronic labour shortage and changing guidance around when public health institutions could use personnel from third-party agencies; those difficulties are generally exacerbated during the summer when many health care workers go on vacation, leading to temporary service cuts, known as breaks of service.
“During the summer, well-deserved vacations for various teams in the health and social services network, as well as significant fluctuations in traffic, add pressure in several regions,” Santé Québec officials said in a statement, adding that the agency had begun planning as early as March to reduce summer service cuts to a minimum.
Robin Marie Coleman, deputy vice president of coordination of access to care and care trajectory, and Véronique Wilson, assistant director general of network coordination and operational support, explained that the agency had put in place a dashboard that allowed them to follow staffing fluctuations and potential breaks of service in near-real time and identify sectors and regions at particular risk. They announced that the agency had put in place a provincewide rotating team (known in French as an équipe volante or flying team) of 246 people – nurses, nursing assistants, care assistants and educators, along with one social worker, two social work technicians, one psychoeducator and four “human relations technicians” to prevent region-wide service breakdowns like the one that occurred last year in the Côte-Nord region. A mechanism for reassigning employees on a voluntary basis to cover for others in the same facility or other facilities was also put in place.
Across the network, they said, local health authorities reported a total of 480 situations where breaks of service were a possibility. “Thanks to these efforts, 384 of these situations have been avoided to date. Of the remaining 96 service disruptions, measures have been implemented for 83. Teams are still working on solutions for 13 situations,” they said in a statement.
A Powerpoint presented by Coleman and Wilson appeared to indicate that the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS service area was at risk of service breaks in the emergency, obstetrics and medical imaging sectors. Beyond that, the news conference was conspicuously light on information specific to different regions of the province, and Coleman said during the question period that she could not comment further on regional specifics, leading to several frustrated outbursts from reporters, one of whom asked, “What are we doing here, then?”
Coleman referred a request for further comment to the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS. “As announced a few weeks ago, the obstetrics department at Hôpital du Granit will be closed for the summer. A delivery plan has been developed with each expectant mother in this department,” CIUSSS spokesperson Nancy Corriveau said in an email. “As was the case last year, the emergency department at Val-des-Sources presents some risk of service disruptions. However, we are optimistic that we will be able to fill the unfilled shifts during the summer, as was the case last year.”
As the BCN previously reported, one operating room at Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital will be shuttered this summer. Nursing services will be unavailable and lab services reduced at the CLSC in Sutton from June 16 to Aug. 24. Lab services will also be reduced at the Bromont CLSC. Nursing services at the CLSC Lac-Brome, suspended at the beginning of last summer, have still not resumed.