CPO

By Trevor Greenway

Local Journalism Initiative

The head of a local health watchdog group says the bonuses extended to Wakefield, Maniwaki and Shawville medical techs are too little, too late. 

While SOS Outaouais president John Pigeon said he was happy that the CAQ government finally agreed to pay rural medical technicians the same $22,000 bonus as their counterparts in Gatineau and Hull, he said he feels the temporary measure is only a band-aid solution and just kicks the region’s health crisis down the road two years. 

“By no means does this really solve anything in the deep problem that we’re facing,” said Pigeon Sept. 9, two days after the CAQ announced the additional funding. “We see the government acting to, sort of, putting out this little fire here and there, but there is a big, overall problem, and that problem is that there’s a lack of the capacity for our Integrated Health and Social Services Centres (CISSS) to be able to be competitive with the market of Ontario.”

Earlier this summer, amid a looming health crisis in the Outaouais that saw a number of health technicians in the region leave for Ontario where they could make $30,000 more in salary, the CAQ government announced a $22,000 bonus for medical techs in Hull and Gatineau. 

The move was criticized by the province’s public health and social services union, the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS), as well as politicians and health groups. 

In response, the province backtracked and offered workers in Wakefield, Maniwaki and Shawville an $18,000 bonus – $4,000 shy of the money their counterparts were offered in urban Outaouais hospitals. This was announced Sept. 7. 

Quebec’s health ministry told the Low Down that the union had agreed to the bonuses. 

“Let us first recall that the Ministry of Health negotiated and agreed on bonuses with the APTS,” wrote the ministry in an email Sept. 5, two days before increasing the bonuses. “A committee was set up to monitor the effects and will make recommendations, if necessary.” 

Gov’t failed to act until near collapse

Liberal MNA for Pontiac and the official health critic André Fortin said, while the bonuses are a good start, he is “frustrated” that it took a near-full healthcare collapse in the Outaouais for the government to finally act. 

“It’s shocking that it took months and months and months for the CAQ government to realize what everybody was telling them – what the region’s wardens were saying; what the CISSO president was saying; what the radio techs themselves were saying: that we needed one bonus across the region in order not to fight amongst ourselves and deplete some hospitals to replenish others,” said Fortin. 

Fortin said he agrees with SOS Outaouais that, while the bonuses, which are only in effect for two years and only offered to full-time employees, are nice, they don’t tackle the region’s real issue: paying doctors, nurses and medical staff enough money to make them stay in Quebec. 

“We should be addressing the fundamental issue here, which is the discrepancy in salaries between our healthcare workers and Ontario’s healthcare workers,” he said. 

“Minister [Christian] Dubé and Premier Legault, for some reason, still insist on using temporary, half-baked measures that will not address the crux of the issue and will not allow the regional healthcare network to start improving.”

The Outaouais network of prefects, the Conférence des préfets de l’Outaouais (CPO), called the bonuses a “significant victory” for healthcare workers, as well as patients, in the region. 

“The CPO duly welcomes this decision, which strengthens our region and demonstrates the impact we can have by joining forces to defend the interests of the Outaouais,” said CPO president Benoit Lauzon in a statement. 

“We thank the local stakeholders of the government of Quebec, the APTS and all those who contributed to this important victory for the region.”