Burnout at work has taken its toll on healthcare during the pandemic. The CISSS de la Montérégie-Est saw the blow coming and set up a unique project to help staff, a project from which the Ministry of Health will be inspired to extend it throughout Quebec.
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“I really encourage the sum of my employees to participate in this program, because it is a program which is free, which is confidential”, mentions Aurore Prela, head of the neurology unit at Pierre hospital. -Butcher.
The CISSS has set up a pilot project with a company that usually supports sick health workers or those in rehabilitation. The program “Take back your momentum” allows you to consult professionals.
“I had anxiety balls in my chest. I no longer managed my stress, I no longer managed my priorities, ”explains Karine Lessard, nurse at Pierre-Boucher hospital.
Since the spring, already 250 employees of the Hôtel-Dieu de Sorel and the Pierre-Boucher Hospital have taken advantage of this service.
A kinesiologist is present two days a week at the hospital to conduct lunchtime yoga sessions and present workshops in the units.
“We can also review stress management strategies. It goes through cardiac coherence techniques, for example, ”says Mickael Chayer, kinesiologist at Impact Readaptation.
Over the past year, more than 7% of the 16,000 employees of this CISSS have been on sick leave for various medical reasons, including psychological distress. It is more or less the same thing almost everywhere in Quebec.
“If there is an activity that causes pain, we are there to provide strategies to allow the person to take a break and resume their work day,” explains Stéphanie Laprise, owner of Impact Réadaptation.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health will set up another program across the province, which will allow employees to be rescued by a watchman, that is to say a colleague from work, if there are signs of distress.
Around 500 watchmen will be trained by the Red Cross in psychological first aid.
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