CISSSO head doctors sounding alarm about future breaks in service, launch petition

CISSSO head doctors sounding alarm about future breaks in service, launch petition

Several high-ranking doctors in the regional health authority CISSSO are calling on the provincial government to immediately address the pay disparities between health care workers in Ontario and the Outaouais, following the recent announced departure of several technicians for jobs across the river.

Earlier this week, CISSSO’s head of emergency care, Dr. Christal Dionne, penned an open letter to Health Minister Christian Dubé in several French-language publications, raising the alarm about the impact of a breach in imagery services at the Hull Hospital.

“Recently, we learned of the imminent departure of three more technologists from our regional secondary trauma center in Hull. This critical situation will inevitably cause a breakdown in imaging service in the facility that receives traumatology, neurology, neurosurgery and cardiology,” she wrote (translated). “Remember that in 2020, it only took 2.5 hours after the breakdown of the scan at Hull hospital for a death, partly attributable to this breakdown, to occur. Operating an emergency without imaging capabilities is simply impossible.”

In an interview with Le Droit last week, Dr. Peter Bonneville, interim president of the Council of Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists, predicted that in the near future there will be a break in service that will threaten the region’s citizens.

“We believe that in the very short term, and that means in a few weeks or months at the latest, there will be a major disruption in service,” he said (translated). “And it will put people’s lives in danger. There is no doubt in our mind.”

Bonneville also launched a petition this week calling on Dubé to immediately address the salary differences between the regions. It was signed by all the health authority’s department heads and as of Thursday afternoon has more than 2,400 signatures.