Quebec paramedics see pay cut for COVID-19 vaccination, testing
Global News
The front-line health-care workers who are registered in the JeContribue program are no longer entitled to $32-an-hour pay to vaccinate or test people for COVID-19.
Quebec paramedics are being pushed to the sideline if they participate in a government program designed to fight against COVID-19.
The front-line health-care workers who are registered in the JeContribue program are no longer entitled to $32-an-hour pay to vaccinate or test people for COVID-19.
The salary for paramedics has been cut to $21 per hour.
“Very upset, very frustrated,” Marc-Olivier Plante, a paramedic in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region of Quebec, told Global News.
Paramedics were part of a list of health-care professionals that included nurses and respiratory therapists participating in the JeContribue program when it was launched almost three years ago.
It was a campaign calling on health-care professionals to provide additional services in the battle against COVID-19, outside of their main job.
But now the government has changed the classification of paramedics, resulting in a pay cut when participating in the program.
“It’s very disrespectful and a big, big betrayal,” Plante said.
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