Christian Dubé’s decision to push back the deadline to stop using private agency workers in the health care network is causing discontent on the Côte-Nord. Health care workers feel that their requests are less important than those in urban areas.
Quebec, Montreal and Montérégie, in particular, are benefiting from a reprieve until March 2025, whereas they should have stopped using the independent labour provided by these agencies as of October.
The president of the Association of General Practitioners of the Côte-Nord, Dr. Guillaume Lord, believes that Minister Christian Dubé’s announcement increases a feeling of inequity.
If the minister considers that his greatest success is having plunged the Côte-Nord into an unprecedented crisis, having closed emergency rooms and caused dozens of patient transfers over thousands of kilometres, this shows how pitiful the record of his reform is.
A quote from Dr. Guillaume Lord, President of the Association of General Practitioners of the Côte-Nord
He accuses the minister of being more reactive in helping urban areas.
We cried for help in May, we were not heard. It is insulting, because the major centres cried for help and the minister reacted in three days, he protests. It is as if the citizens of the regions were less important than those in the major centres.
The Côte-Nord can use independent labour until October 2026, but the rate cap, a measure imposed since April, has discouraged private agencies from providing as many staff as planned in remote regions. He would like Christian Dubé to show flexibility on this point.
Open in full screen mode
The president of the Association of General Practitioners of the Côte-Nord, Guillaume Lord, would like the minister to show as much flexibility for the regions as for the large centres.
Photo : Radio-Canada
The North Shore has suffered enormously from the rate cap, and nothing has changed. Nurses and orderlies need incentives because they will stay in the city if conditions are the same.
APTS national representative for the North Shore, Kevin Newbury wonders whether the government is improvising. The disaster is happening here too, not just in major centres, he adds.
He believes that the Côte-Nord does not need additional delays, but incentive measures for health personnel.
According to information from Charles-Étienne Drouin
