'Sometimes I just don't see the end,' Maisonneuve-Rosemont nurse on working excessive overtime
CTV
Around 100 nurses at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital are threatening to quit and signed a petition calling for their manager's immediate resignation for imposing mandatory overtime requirements on the staff. The nurses union is meeting with the health board on Tuesday after a sit in.
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.
Around 100 nurses at the hospital are threatening to quit and signed a petition calling for their manager's immediate resignation for imposing mandatory overtime requirements on staff. 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.
"I don't have kids, but I have a lot of colleagues that have family and have kids, and I don't know how they live like this," she said.
The nurses union (FIQ) spokesperson Sonia Djelidi said that the union began meeting with the health and social services board that runs the hospital (CIUSSS-EIM) Tuesday morning.
