(Quebec) A few days before the deployment of the flying team, the CISSS of Côte-Nord and Abitibi-Témiscamingue still do not know when the first caregivers will arrive to lend a hand, or even their number. On the North Shore, doctors are growing impatient and fear seeing some leave the region.

“For the moment, the date of the arrival of the resources as well as their number is not confirmed,” indicated the CISSS de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue, in an email to La Presse. The answer is the same on the North Shore. “On the other hand, the CISSS de la Côte-Nord is ready to accommodate all the resources requested,” specifies the establishment.

These two regions, with Outaouais, must however be the first to welcome nurses and beneficiary attendants (PAB) who will make up the new “flying team” of the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS). These workers sent to the rescue are expected from June 20. The establishments have also communicated their needs to the MSSS.

“For two weeks, we have passed around 500 [curriculum vitæ],” said Minister Christian Dubé at Paul Arcand’s microphone last Thursday. “We will be able to send our first cohorts by June 20, I hope to the North Shore and Outaouais. We are working at full steam to be able to benefit from the collective agreements that we have signed,” he added.

The MSSS confirmed in the evening that June 20 is still targeted for the deployment of the first teams, but that the people recruited “will arrive on site gradually in the days that follow, as their hiring is finalized.”

“Resources will be moved as soon as possible, regardless of job title. There is not a sequence according to a job title, but rather according to the hirings made,” writes the MSSS in an email. Furthermore, we learned that 1,200 applications were received and that “recruitment is going well”.

The Ministry ensures that it maintains “constant contact” in the file, “in particular to ensure that needs are properly assessed and provide an adequate supply of personnel”.

On the North Shore, the Council of Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists (CMDP) launched a new cry from the heart on Monday, deploring “an endless crisis” which affects staff and patients.

“The flying team announced for June 20 following our first letter is still not operational and its start date has been postponed to somewhere in July,” writes President Dr. Youssef Ezahr in a letter obtained by La Presse.

“We learned this through the little information that the general management [of the CISSS] of the Ministry receives,” he said in an interview. The CISSS has not confirmed this information.

Dr. Ezahr says “exhaustion” is being felt among healthcare workers and doctors in the region, who have to manage the transfer of patients outwards. There were 50 in three weeks, he wrote in his letter. “Our doctors, at a certain point, they will get tired and they will want to leave the region because this type of challenge, apart from the North Shore, the other regions do not have it,” he warns.

In Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the local FIQ also maintains that the CISSS management informed them on Friday that these workers could only arrive in July. “The earliest it would be after July 1, and that wasn’t even certain,” explained the president, Jean-Sébastien Blais.

The creation of the flying team is possible under the new mobility levers, obtained during the renewal of collective agreements (FTQ, CSN). The FIQ, which is still negotiating with Quebec, is not part of the offensive.

The Côte-Nord and Abitibi-Témiscamingue establishments have confirmed that the resources of the flying team are necessary to maintain essential services. They are not yet added to the work schedules since they are waiting for confirmations of their arrival.

“These requests correspond exclusively to needs making it possible to avoid disruptions in essential services,” writes the CISSS de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue, which requires 15 nurses, six auxiliary nurses and two PABs in Quebec. “At the moment, this lack of personnel is being filled by overtime or by reductions in services,” indicates the Côte-Nord, where we hope to obtain 38 nurses.

These regions are suffering the repercussions of new constraints imposed by the Legault government on employment agencies.