The Integrated Health and Social Services Center of Montérégie-Ouest (CISSSMO) admits that the workforce issues at the Suroît Hospital are very important and that the situation is precarious in its hospitals. However, Catherine Brousseau, information officer for external communications, media and ministerial relations in the human resources, communications and legal affairs department ensures that the management of blue codes is always a priority, regardless of the situation.
Mrs. Brousseau affirms that the management of the CISSSMO is aware that the situation is difficult and that it is working on various avenues of solution in order to improve the situation and ensure safe care and services for the next shifts.
Currently, staff from other departments are directed to critical areas, and several managers with clinical training have also been asked to lend a hand to support the teams. Other job titles can also be used to support care units.
“Several meetings with the union have taken place and an action plan to explore other avenues and possible solutions is being developed, explains Catherine Brousseau. Everything is done to ensure the presence of qualified personnel to take care of its clientele. This difficult situation requires everyone’s collaboration and more meetings with the union are to come.”
Collaboration refused
VIVA MÉDIA has learned that the Coopérative des techniciens ambulanciers de la Montérégie (CETAM) has offered CISSSMO that paramedics come to the aid of the emergency room nurses at Suroit and Anna-Laberge, in the form of a loan of service. However, despite their qualifications, the CISSSMO replied that they would instead be allowed to wash chairs in the emergency room.
“The reasons for this decision are unclear, explains a source close to the case. It could be a blatant lack of recognition with the paramedical profession, or a fear that this experience will be used by paramedics in the negotiations of current collective agreements.”
About 1 month ago, the national medical director of pre-hospital emergency services, Dr Élyse Berger, refused a joint CETAM project with the company AirMedic, which would have seen the arrival of a helicopter-borne medical evacuation base at Les Cèdres airport. The two stakeholders were ready to activate this project almost immediately, which would have allowed a rapid evacuation of polytrauma victims to specialized hospitals.
It should be noted that in December 2020, the CISSSMO refused the deployment of CETAM community paramedicine (PCI) teams in the Valleyfield and Vaudreuil-Soulanges sectors. The project is in place in the Longueuil region, and would have made it possible to take the pressure off regional emergencies by allowing community paramedics to sort patients who do not require urgent care.
“It seems obvious that the decisions taken are first and foremost for ideological reasons, relegating efficient services to the population. These three projects would have had an obvious and immediate impact on the emergency overload of the Suroit Hospital ”, concludes our source.
