Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist
GASPÉ – The situation is extreme in three of the four hospital medical laboratories operated by the Gaspé Peninsula Integrated Health and Social Services Centre (CISSS), which are now closed at night due to a lack of personnel.
In May, the Maria hospital had to reduce service hours, prompting the implementation of an on-call service to respond to emergencies.
A similar situation occurred in June at the Gaspé hospital, while the Sainte-Anne-des-Monts hospital has been operating this way for a decade.
The lack of appeal of the profession since the implementation of the reform by former Liberal Health Minister Gaétan Barrette in 2016 and the creation of Optilab, which established a server laboratory in Rimouski, is the source of the problem, according to the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (Alliance of Professional and Technical Health and Social Services Personnel).
Data shared by the union shows there are approximately 35 medical technologists in the Gaspé Peninsula, whereas 75 would be needed to provide full laboratory services across the region’s four hospitals.
In Gaspé, the situation was criticized four years ago when only six of the 14 technologists remained in place.
“Four years later, we’re back to square one. We’re left with a minimum number of people at work due to numerous sick leaves, which is forcing the employer to transform the service with on-call duty,” said Alliance of Professional and Technical Health and Social Services Personnel (APTS) regional spokesperson Jenny Tardif.
“People are at home and already working during the day. We have to continue to provide service in the evening and at night. They are at home at night with a cell phone and are called when the doctor requires them for an emergency,” says Ms. Tardif.
The service is running at a slower pace because non-urgent cases are only being handled during the day.
The union representative recalls the protests that took place in 2016, particularly in front of the Gaspé hospital, to denounce the Barrette reform, and the region’s elected officials followed suit.
“When they announced that we were going to lose 70% of the positions in the Gaspé Peninsula, it hurt the profession extremely badly. When you make health care reforms, you feel the consequences several years later. Today, in 2025, we are in the midst of the aftermath of this reform,” comments the union spokesperson.
Ms. Tardif points out that the current situation is not a question of budget.
For example, the medical technologist training program at Cégep de Rimouski has produced only five to ten graduates.
“We destroyed the profession with the 2016 reform. The solutions are not simple,” she says. Even if recruits were found, the issue of housing would still need to be addressed. “We’re practically asking for a miracle. We absolutely must generate interest in the profession. But that’s a very long-term project. We have lost 40 to 50% of our workforce in recent years in the Gaspé Peninsula. It’s difficult to recover,” says Ms. Tardif.
The situation described by the APTS also concerns the Union of Nurses, Nursing Assistants and Respiratory Therapists of Eastern Quebec, which also denounces this situation.
The Lower Saint Lawrence CISSS has provided mobile testing equipment in emergency rooms so that nurses can run tests when laboratories are closed.
“It makes no sense for the members we represent because they don’t have the training. It’s not part of their delegated duties. These machines take time to analyze and often produce error codes. All the time spent doing these tests is time that isn’t being spent triaging patients in the emergency room or caring for critical patients,” says president Pier-Luc Bujold.
He is calling for the funds allocated to laboratories to be transferred to hire additional staff, such as laboratory technicians.
“There will be less impact on the population and the nurses and nursing assistants we represent. If it’s not a budget issue, transfer the money and add staff,” demands the union leader, who points out that centralizing laboratories was nonsense.
He is taking advantage of the situation to once again denounce the $20 million in cuts that the Gaspé Peninsula CISSS must make in order to stay within the budget allocated by Santé Québec.
“We are always asking staff to do more with less. The case of laboratory technologists is just one among many. Every time we cut a profession, it’s always the nurses who bear the brunt. Are we cutting back on housekeeping services? We’ll ask a nurse to empty the trash. Cut an administrative assistant? We’ll ask the nurse to make calls and file papers. Close the pharmacy at 4 p.m.? We’ll ask the nurse to fetch the medications. It seems like nurses are just fill-ins,” explains Mr. Bujold.