With possible imagery technician exodus looming, Pontiac CISSSO representative lays out options
With possible imagery technician exodus looming, Pontiac CISSSO representative lays out options
With the looming possibility of the majority of the medical imagery technicians departing the Pontiac Hospital, the local representative of regional health authority CISSSO spoke with CHIP 101.9 about their planning for the weeks ahead. Imagery technicians handle several types of examinations, from CT scans to x-rays, and quick access to these services is vital in emergency situations.
Currently, five of the six full-time imagery technicians at the Pontiac Hospital have applied to work elsewhere, four of those at the hospitals in Hull and Gatineau and one at a facility in Ontario. The hospital currently has 8 full-time positions available with two unfilled at the moment, as well several part-time technicians.
On September 9, the offers for the positions in the city will be finalized, but it’s currently unclear how many of those who have applied will be accepted and will actually follow through with leaving. Further complicating the situation, negotiations between the union representing the techs (APTS) and the provincial government are still ongoing, and any new developments could factor into the technicians’ decision making.
The provincial government, responding to alarming reports this spring about the possibility of service breaks at the hospitals in the city, initially offered $22,000 bonuses to technicians working at the Hull and Gatineau hospitals in an effort to stem the tide of workers leaving for higher pay in Ontario. Following concerns about siphoning staff from other hospitals in the region, they later offered bonuses to technicians at the Maniwaki and Papineau hospitals in June, before finally adding the Pontiac and Wakefield hospitals in July. The bonuses in Pontiac, Wakefield and Maniwaki are slightly smaller, at $18,000.
CISSSO’s Pontiac representative Nicole Boucher-Larivière said that once they find out how many technicians are leaving on September 9, there will be negotiations with the APTS to determine the timeline of their departure so as to minimize disruptions in service. She said that this process could be anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months.
Boucher-Larivière explained that they were looking at several options depending on how many of the technicians decide to leave. She said it was possible to place technicians on-call, only responding to emergencies, which would delay non-emergency procedures. Bringing in technicians from private agencies is also possible, but this is a pricey option, since the provincial rate for an agency technician is $68.62/hour.
Boucher-Larivière acknowledged that the disjointed rollout of bonuses over the past few months has been frustrating for local employees, but said she was hopeful that they would find a way to retain them in the Pontiac. She said that she’s received many calls from concerned residents, and said that she wished to reassure the population that they were looking at every option to keep local services viable in the long-run.
