Like many others, I realize that the province had to spend a lot of money on the services of private agency employees for the Vitalité authority.
But what pleases me is that, for once, it is for French-speakers that this money was spent.
I wonder if this is not the first time that we have spent more on French speakers than on English speakers in the province since Blaine Higgs governed New Brunswick.
If all English speakers were bilingual when they left the province’s schools like French speakers, we would not need to look for bilingual employees in these private agencies to compensate for the lack of staff in Vitalité hospitals.
This is one of the reasons that Dr. Desrosiers mentioned during an interview on the subject. She had to have people who could speak French to patients in the Vitalité network.
The leaders of these agencies knew it and paid the price; being bilingual in New Brunswick is an asset! And it pays off!
These people deserve to be paid to be able to communicate with all patients, something that monolingual English speakers cannot do.
And what is this difference noted in the article on page 4 of Acadie Nouvelle on Wednesday, June 19?
Vitality, loss of 41 nurses, gain of 32, while Horizon has an increase of 470 and a loss of 190.
Why such a difference in the numbers?
Someone told me that the English-speaking Horizon authority comes to recruit Vitalité staff who are bilingual and brings them into the hospitals of their authority, so there are more employees and the working conditions are better.
I don’t blame these employees for going where they have better working conditions, but Horizon is stripping our French-speaking hospitals.
Dr. Desrosiers therefore needs to call for reinforcements from private agencies… which are expensive!
Will we see the day when all young people in the province will be bilingual when they leave school, both English and French speakers?
Lucie Babineau
Dieppe
