The positions eliminated in health are not layoffs, insists Dubé

Photo: Jacques Boissinot The Canadian Press “We did not lay off any staff,” Health Minister Christian Dubé said Thursday.

The hundreds of positions that are currently being eliminated in the health network were all “vacant,” according to Health Minister Christian Dubé, who denies having laid off staff in the midst of a shortage.

“The positions that were set aside […] are positions that were vacant. They were vacant,” the minister said during question period in parliament Thursday. “We did not lay off any staff. »

One after the other, the Liberal Party and Québec solidaire questioned him on the recent abolition of hundreds of positions in integrated health and social services centres (CISSS), including nursing positions.

“330 positions eliminated in Chaudière-Appalaches, 565 positions at the CISSS de Laval, 500 at the CISSS Montérégie-Est, that's just in the last week,” listed Solidaire MNA Vincent Marissal.

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Nurses asked to “change positions”

For his part, Liberal André Fortin asked the minister to tell him “how cutting positions for nurses [was] going to help him catch up on surgeries.”

Christian Dubé first avoided the heart of the question and then stated that some nurses were being asked to “change positions” post office”.

“In some cases, on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, we had too many people, then we were short of people in the schedules… in unfavorable schedules, on Friday evenings, Saturdays, weekends,” he said.

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Managers, he added, are doing this thanks to the new “flexibility” given to them by the new collective agreements concluded with nurses.

Respect for budgets “non-negotiable”

Faced with an $11 billion deficit, the Quebec government has asked the health network to limit its spending by the end of the fiscal year, next March. The health deficit alone is estimated at $1.5 billion.

On Tuesday, the minister reiterated that the CISSSs would have to find ways to curb their deficits. “We will respect our budgets,” he said. “It’s non-negotiable. That’s been the case from the beginning.”

However, starting next week, the pressure in this matter will shift to other shoulders, at least in part, with the official entry into operation of the Santé Québec agency.