The emergency room nurses at the Joliette Hospital in Lanaudière are screaming from the bottom of their hearts: They have so few guns that they feel they are risking jeopardizing the safety of their patients. As a last resort, they are calling for partial emergency closures.
Posted 2:35pm Updated 3:00pm
Lila Dussault The Press
“Isn’t it funny when you look away from the urgency and wonder what patient we’re going to miss because we’re so overwhelmed? ‘ denounces Jessica Perreault, who has worked at the Lanaudière Regional Hospital Center (aka Joliette Hospital) for the past seven years.
According to statistics from IndexSanté.ca, one of the highest in Quebec, the emergency room occupancy rate was 185% as of Thursday. It was even worse on Wednesday night, with occupancy hitting 191%. When Jessica Perreault arrived for her shift, she found that – once again – she and her colleagues were only 12 nurses on the floor, instead of the 20 required to provide safe care.
“The employer offered as a solution that we take more patients,” she says in a telephone interview. It was: absorb and arrange so that nothing happens [de grave]. »
But the responsibility for care rests on her shoulders, explains Ms. Perreault. “The day something happens to a patient, it’s my fault, not the manager’s who told me to take more,” she assures. It belongs to me ! »
In these circumstances, she and her colleagues refused to work, demanding the partial closure of the emergency room and the transfer of patients to the Pierre-Le Gardeur hospital. An option rejected by the employer, she says.
Then they held a sit-in – which consists of getting together to protest peacefully – to denounce the situation. Day shift nurses continued to have to work overtime to make up for their absences.
“It’s dangerous,” adds Ms. Perreault, who has already experienced burnout. “I feel guilty about leaving, but also continue to give and accept that care. I feel like I have a guillotine over my head…”
At the time of writing, the CISSS de Lanaudière had not responded to La Presse’s requests for information.
An intolerable situation
“What happens is a volcano that is ready to explode for a long time, and there it explodes,” illustrates Marie-Chantal Bédard, vice-president of the Lanaudière trade union (FIQSIL).
Ms. Bédard describes a critical situation at the Joliette Hospital, where sit-ins and ‘compulsory overtime’ (TSO) are frequent due to severe staff shortages. “And the employer continues to offer all the benefits even if they don’t have all the employees to do it,” she claims.
The labor shortage directly affects patient care. On June 28, 67 emergency room workers signed an open letter for La Presse to see. Examples abound:
“That a patient was found in cardiac arrest when she was not in an appropriate area with the necessary monitoring. »
“That very old people sometimes wait 48 to 72 hours in the emergency room aisles. »
“That a person at the end of his life has not been given a room for more than three days, so he has spent his last moments in a corridor behind a curtain. »
Marie-Chantal Bédard even describes a staff member with COVID-19 who had to keep working in the resuscitation area because no one could replace her.
“The aim of the employees is to alert the population,” adds Ms. Bédard. They turned to their employer, to the manager of the hospital, to us, the union. When they got there, they tried everything. »
Respect a patient-carer relationship
The main request of the signers of the open letter is the definition of nurse-patient relationships “adapted to the occupancy of the emergency room according to the emergency management guide”.
Revising this ratio was also one of the recommendations of the October 2021 report by coroner Géhane Kamel following the inquest into the death of Joyce Echaquan at the same hospital last fall.
A demand repeated last April by a dozen organizations and professional bodies.
If the hospital doesn’t comply with their request, staff are demanding a partial or full closure of the hospital’s emergency rooms, like six other emergency rooms in Quebec that partially closed this summer.
“The situation is really critical, assures Marie-Chantal Bédard. Girls, they can’t take it anymore »
Learn more
43 Number of compulsory overtime hours (TSO) in the emergency room of the regional hospital center of Lanaudière from June 5th to July 2nd
Professional Association of Lanaudière (FIQSIL)
306 Number of overtime hours in the emergency room of the Lanaudière regional hospital center from June 5th to July 2nd
Professional Association of Lanaudière (FIQSIL)