Healthcare workers protest

September 18, 2018

Caleb Nickerson

caleb@theequity.ca

Members of the des travailleuses et aux travailleurs du CISSS de l’Outaouais (STTSSSO-CSN), the union representing orderlies, kitchen, cleaning and administrative staff at healthcare facilities in the region staged a protest outside the CAP in Shawville at about midday on Sept. 12. They were calling for a solution to chronic short-staffing, among other grievances.

CALEB NICKERSON
SHAWVILLE Sept. 12, 2018
On Wednesday, members of the union representing healthcare support workers in the Outaouais held a protest outside the CAP in Shawville to decry short-staffing and other problems they’ve dealt with over the past several months.
The Syndicat des travailleuses et aux travailleurs du CISSS de l’Outaouais (STTSSSO-CSN) held up signage with low battery imagery and blew noisemakers at passing vehicles. The group of about a dozen were stationed in front of the CAP building at midday.
Daniel Roy, a vice-president of grievances for the group explained that the union encompasses orderlies, administrative, kitchen and cleaning staff at the hospitals, CLSCs and long-term care facilities in the region. He said that all departments have seen chronic understaffing, among other problems.
“We’re here to [highlight] that there’s missing personnel everywhere in the Outaouais, especially at the CHSLD,” he said. “And what that does is overwork the workers and the [patients] aren’t getting the services that they should. It could be the second bath during the week, they’re not being walked, they might not be able to get water like they should.”
He added that the added stress for workers has led to higher rates of burnout, which in turn adds to the staff shortages.
The union staged a similar protest in February, when Health Minister Gaétan Barette arrived to announce an expansion to the Pontiac Community Hospital’s endoscopy unit. Roy said they have been at the bargaining table with the government for about eight months.
Union vice-president Michelle Bourgoin, who works in administration, showed a calendar riddled with annotations for short-handed shifts on nearly every day of the week. She said it is a similar story across the range of professions that the union handles.
“You had some good salaried [administrative] people here, but they took them out and put them in Gatineau,” commented Roy.
He added that he and his colleagues were paying close attention to the positions of the different parties in the upcoming provincial election.

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