Mediator to step in Montreal hospital after nurses threaten to mass quit
CTV
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube is appointing an outside mediator to resolve the nursing crisis unfolding at the emergency room of a Montreal hospital. About 100 nurses at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal are threatening to quit.
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé is appointing an outside mediator to resolve the nursing crisis unfolding at the emergency room of a Montreal hospital. More than 90 of the 115 nurses at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal are threatening to quit and signed a petition calling for their manager's immediate resignation for imposing mandatory overtime requirements on staff. The Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital emergency department reopened at 8 a.m. Tuesday after authorities asked the public to avoid using it overnight Monday during a demonstration by emergency room nurses. "Several people had described the work climate as toxic," said Dubé at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "It's unfortunate that we had to go through this situation last night but we are really involved right now to find a solution."
Dubé agreed with President and CEO of the CIUSSS de l'Est-de-Montréal, Jean-François Fortin Verreault, to "bring in an external person to continue to try to find solutions."
Early Tuesday afternoon, Fortin Verreault said he was confident the emergency room would remain open overnight.
"The objective is to keep the emergency open. There is no doubt, we are working with the teams to do so. Currently, we're able to cover 60 patients on stretchers on the evening shift, we're currently at 62, so we're working to make sure it works there, and that it's in balance," he said.
ER nurse Amelie Richard started her shift at midnight after her colleagues on the evening shift completed the sit-in. She worked three 16-hour days in the space of four days the prior weekend, and spoke about what that feels like.
"Sometimes I just don't see the end," she said. "I think we're going to continue this always, when I think it's not a solution. I think we need to do something."
Richard said if the hospital wants to hire staff to make up its chronic labour shortage, it needs to show that it's a good place to work where health-care staff can do their jobs.
