Strong reactions to “ethical” recruitment of nurses in Africa

Quebec’s decision to no longer recruit nursing staff on the African continent for “ethical” reasons has sparked favorable reactions and questions.

For liberal MP Madwa-Nika Cadet, it’s a good decision, especially for Morocco.

It is important that we can overcome this labor shortage (in Quebec), but it is certain that if other countries are in even more difficult situations than ours, when they have the impression whether their nurses fly here or to France for example, we understand the representations that have been made by Moroccorecognizes the spokesperson for the official opposition on employment.

According to Ms. Cadet, Quebec should equip itself with a integrated immigration planning office to do things better in the future.

An arrogant approach

Tuesday on Radio-Canada, the ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco, Souriya Otmani, welcomed that Quebec truly made a thoughtful, fair, ethical and equitable decision .

Dispensaries are built and equipped but cannot function because medical and nursing staff are lacking, the lives of thousands of people are squarely at stake.she said.

However, the recruitment of qualified personnel provokes the anger of other African countries.

Quebec had an arrogant approachestimates a diplomatic source from a French-speaking African country. This source wishes that his identity not be revealed because his country wants to maintain its ties with Quebec.

She explains that during missions from Quebec earlier this year, her country clearly expressed its opposition to this recruitment.

We have little financial means and that hurts us a lot when a rich state like Quebec comes to recruit professionals whose training we paid for.

His State therefore wants the next planned missions to be canceled altogether.

At the Parti Québécois, MP Pascal Paradis deplores that we consciously have missions to seek out the cream of the crop, year after year, in the field of health, in education, in the economic and cultural field.

According to him, it’s very good that we have this reflection because it is closely linked to our national debate on immigration.

For Québec Solidaire, the basic problem, it’s not that there is a shortage of nurses in the strict sense, it’s that there is a shortage of nurses who want to work in the public sectorcommented MP Christine Labrie.

It is in private clinics that we should be recruiting nurses at the moment!says the spokesperson for social solidarity.

The Minister of Health remained cautious in his comments.

We’ve still done well so far, but we have other places (countries) with which we work better at the moment, so we’ll continue like thiscommented Christian Dubé.

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Radio-Canada has learned that recruitment is stopping in all African countries, except Tunisia. However, a few destinations remain on Quebec’s agenda for recruiting nurses abroad.

International pressures

Over the past 2 years, Quebec has recruited around 1,000 nurses in Africa, particularly in Cameroon, Morocco and Ivory Coast.

To date, the $65 million program has generated such enthusiasm that the government wants to recruit 235 additional candidates abroad to meet its labor needs.

Quebec has suffered more than one criticism since the launch of its vast nursing recruitment program in February 2022.

Last year, for example, the World Health Organization (WHO) compiled a list of 55 countries with the most serious health workforce problems for alert Western nations and ask them to protect vulnerable health systems.

According to WHO data, Cameroon has 1.9 nurses per 10,000 inhabitants, while Quebec has nearly a hundred.

Corridor discussions at the International Congress of Nurses held in Montreal (New window)in July 2023 focused largely on the international recruitment of countries riches such as Canada, United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

In an interview with Radio-Canada, the first vice-president of the International Council of Nurses, Lisa Little, welcomes Quebec’s decision to no longer recruit in countries like Cameroon. According to her, the first step is not to recruit in countries on the WHO safeguarding list, including Cameroon and Ivory Coast. We must stop recruiting in these 55 countries [de la liste ] of which 37 are in Africa.