Minister Christian Dubé continues to urgently call nurses to help local health workers in any way he can, but two nurses who wanted to get involved with the 811 telephone service were barred from hiring because they don’t speak English well enough.
• Also read: The new variants of COVID invite you to the holidays
• Also read: 388,000 Quebecers have enrolled in a family doctor group
• Also read: “I’m scared”: the cry from the heart of a triple nurse
The two nurses are currently temporarily unable to work after an accident and wanted to respond to Minister Dubé’s call to contribute to the 811 emergency number, but were denied a position at the call centre.
One of the criteria of the CISSS de Laval is an advanced level of English, a criterion that has been in effect since October 2021.
“We want pensioners to come and help us,” said Dérek Cyr, President of the Union of Nurses, Respiratory Therapists and Auxiliary Nurses of Laval (SIIIAL-CSQ). “If we have people in the network who have experience and can help us, it’s hard for me to understand why we refuse them a job.”
The Vice-President recalled that the telephone line allows users to press 1 to speak in French and 2 to speak in English.
“The government must correct the situation and quickly stop doing so,” says Liberal MP André Fortin. “On the one hand we are requesting 5,000 extra nurses to help with 811 and on the other hand we are turning down someone who only speaks basic English. At the moment, many francophones are waiting to receive benefits from the health system.”
CISSS de Laval responded, saying it intends to “adjust its English-language service offerings by reconsidering the number of available resources allocated to this constituency” given the current labor shortages.
Our journalist Kevin Crane-Desmarais also learned that a nurse decided to leave her position at CISSS de Laval after receiving this news.