‘It doesn’t fix the problem’: Nurses pan Quebec’s bonus offer, say real issue is mandatory overtime

Many nurses and other health-care workers were quick to slam the plan on social media, calling it a temporary bandage on an issue that requires serious surgical work.

Sandra Gagnon said she received an excited phone call from her mom last week, after Quebec Premier François Legault  said he would give full-time nurses a $15,000 bonus to keep them from quitting the public system.

Gagnon, however, was less excited than her mom. The bonus is bittersweet, she said in a recent interview, and it makes her wonder how much her health is worth.

“It’s so great, $15,000, but what do you want me to do with it?” Gagnon said. “I won’t have the energy and health to spend it.”

On Sept. 23, Legault unveiled what he called a “mini revolution” in the health system, announcing $1 billion to seduce nurses to stay in a network that is missing more than 4,000 of them.

Full-time nurses in the public system would receive one-time bonuses of $15,000, as would part-time nurses who switch to full-time work, Legault said. Nurses who have quit the public health-care network and return full time would get $12,000, while full-time nurses in five regions that are hit particularly hard by shortages would get $18,000, the premier said.

Many nurses and other health-care workers were quick to slam the plan on social media, calling Legault’s so-called mini revolution a temporary bandage on an issue that requires serious surgical work. The money is welcome, they said, but it doesn’t solve the issue of working conditions, particularly the dreaded mandatory overtime that public-sector nurses are subjected to.

Retired nurse Louise Martel says the money is not enough to bring her back into the system, because it only applies to people who return full time.

“You cannot ask a retired person to come back and work full time — it doesn’t make any sense,” Martel, 58, who retired in August, said in a recent interview.