Quebec health unions have accused plans to allow COVID-positive health workers to continue working

In the last 24 hours, nearly 500 healthcare workers have tested positive for COVID-19 across the state, and the total number of healthcare staff infected with the virus has exceeded 5,600, according to Radio-Canada.

In response to absenteeism, which has exhausted the list of already shortages and exacerbated the long-standing labor crisis in Quebec hospitals, Radio Canada has announced that the government will provide asymptomatic COVID-19-positive health care workers. Work that I found out that I am seriously considering allowing continuation.

Several unions have blamed controversial measures. This has been an option for medical facilities since March last year. Government documentsHowever, very few have been implemented.

“We don’t want infected workers to be returned to hospitals,” said Réjean Leclerc, chairman of the FSSS-CSN Union, which represents more than 130,000 health workers in Quebec.

“It’s like putting a wolf in a sheep’s enclosure,” he said, pointing out the inevitability of infection as infected and uninfected workers pass each other in the corridor and share the same cafeteria.

Under this measure, asymptomatic infected workers will only work with COVID-19 patients to prevent infection with new hospitalizations. However, Naveed Hussain, a nurse at McGill University Health Center, states that the new variant is a “game changer.”

“Things are evolving very rapidly,” Hussein said. “There can be asymptomatic and infected people within a few hours. The next thing we know is that we are infected with patients, infected with colleagues … and You will lose more medical staff. “

Julie Bushar, chairman of FIQ, Quebec’s largest nursery union, urged the government to reconsider this measure in an email received by CBC Montreal to the Ministry of Health.

“It is irresponsible to expose other essential workers when all resources are needed to treat infected people,” Bushar wrote.

She said the measure “could significantly undermine the safety of medical facilities and public confidence in them.”

N95 mask for all workers, union urges

FSSS-CSN and FIQ are the measures imposed on care facilities and hospitals during the previous wave, such as establishing hot and cold zones for hospitals, restricting staff movement between centers, and making N95 masks available. We are asking the government to revive some. To all staff.

“This time we know what we’re dealing with, so we need to take more precautions. We’ve lived it for 20 months,” Leclerc said.

On Thursday, Radio-Canada reported that the state had purchased an additional 10 million N95 masks to increase inventory, in addition to the 15 million spares. They are used to equip more healthcare professionals, but not all.

Leclerc states that masks need to be made available to everyone. Making multiple healthcare workers sick at the same time causes a “system shutdown.”

“We can’t be half protected. We need to be well protected to avoid absenteeism,” he said.

The CIUSSS du Center-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal also issued a directive on Thursday recommending wearing the N95 in the “cold” zone of the hospital without waiting for Quebec to tackle the problem. ..

On Friday, Quebec’s Workplace Safety Commission, CNESST, calls for increased use of N95 masks for health care workers in dangerous situations in the face of the resurrection of COVID-19 cases and the arrival of Omicron variants. I issued a command.

“CNESST requires people who provide care in the most dangerous situations, including certain situations in cold climates, to increase coverage and use N95 masks,” the release said.

Earlier, the government stated that it would distribute N95 masks primarily to emergency rooms and family medicine groups (GMFs).

Nurse Hussein says she supports the call despite the obvious risks that her colleagues face on a daily basis.

“Our resources are limited … we need to share these resources properly and properly,” he said.

“This is an invisible war … As medical professionals, we are soldiers in this battle. Our priority is to protect patients, so we continue to fight.”