The threat to expel seniors from hospitals on the North Shore is more than “unacceptable,” says Minister Christian Dubé, who wants to shed light on the events.
The Minister of Health confirmed, Thursday morning, the information first reported by host Paul Arcand, on 98.5 FM.
The latter revealed that elderly people housed in the overflow unit at the Baie-Comeau hospital received a memo warning them that they could be expelled if they refuse to be transferred to a CHSLD in another region. .
Worse, if they persisted in refusing, the CISSS de la Côte-Nord threatened to bill them for the unauthorized hospitalization days.
Early Thursday morning, Minister Dubé advised the CISSS to “immediately stop this practice.” To date, no patient has been affected by the directive, assures his office.
Christian Dubé wants to shed light on the sequence of events, but does not commit to sanctioning the people involved.
“I just want to make sure I understand who made what decisions,” both at the department and locally, he said.
“Let me see before taking any action,” adds the minister.
But Christian Dubé refuses to see the current shortage as a consequence of the significant restrictions imposed on private personnel placement agencies.
The public sector flying teams, promised as reinforcements two weeks ago, are still not functional. Quebec had to first sign collective agreements with the CSN and the FTQ, still not having an agreement with the largest nurses’ union, the FIQ.
“We will soon have announcements on the question of the flying team,” assures Minister Dubé.
Responsibility
But the leader of the Parti Québécois invites the minister to stop acting as a “news commentator”.
The situation, he believes, was caused by his poor planning after the announcement of significant restrictions on the use of private personnel placement agencies.
“At some point the minister will become responsible, rather than commenting saying this is unacceptable. This is unacceptable because of its management,” said Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
In favor of ending the use of agencies, Québec solidaire also questions the timetable adopted by Québec solidaire. “Perhaps Mr. Dubé did not take enough time to prevent this from happening,” said Alexandre Leduc.
“He set a deadline for the agencies, very good, but he did not measure the impact on the region,” added Liberal spokesperson André Fortin in the chamber.
“Children from the North Shore are sent to Quebec. There are babies from the North Shore, newborns, who have been separated from their mothers. Then, at the end of the day, seniors are being bullied from one end of the region to the other, being threatened with injunctions and expulsion from the hospital. All this because the minister did not measure the impact of his own measures,” he said during the question period.
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