At the CHSLD Pie-XII in Rouyn-Noranda, patients have not had the right to toothbrushing for six months, denounced the CSN a few days ago, during a press briefing which was interrupted by the police.
The last time their nails were cut or their beards shaved was in May. The second bath has been postponed for weeks. At this point… what’s the point of clothing patients? It’s pajama day, day after day.
We abandoned the dignity of these people in the same place as blouses: in the back of the closet.
When the employees who had witnessed the indefensible for too long wanted to alert the population, due to a lack of internal attention, the management of the establishment called the police for “illegal assembly”.
Above all, this must not be known.
We are in Quebec. In 2024.
Massacre of austerity
In less than 10 years, the CISSS de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue went from $1M to $145M in independent labor. A real fortune.
The CAQ is demanding to close the widening deficit, so the temporary cuts have become permanent. Services have been further cut to the bone.
In this CHSLD, 4,000 hours per month of direct services to users have been eliminated. That’s without mentioning all the other cuts affecting all health services in the region.
This is happening in Abitibi-Témiscamingue as well as on the North Shore, and the deterioration of services is gaining ground everywhere, in Gaspésie, in the Laurentians, in Mauricie…
You would have to be crazy to believe that the health system can absorb $1 billion in deficit without slashing services and without the population realizing it despite the silence to which staff are clearly still condemned.
The grim portrait of what is happening in Rouyn-Noranda is probably only the tip of the iceberg.
Our patients deserve better.
Who do we want to protect by forcing employees to remain silent as tombs?
