‘The worst thing I’ve ever seen’: Quebec health-care workers denounce government cuts

Quebec health-care workers and their CSN union representatives rallied in Montreal Wednesday to denounce recent job cuts by Santé Quebec, which aims to eliminate a $1.5 billion-deficit in the public health-care system.

The rally brought together unionized hospital and CIUSSS health-care workers – represented by the Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (FSSS-CSN) – from across the Montreal region.

“Every time an employee is cut out, services are reduced,” CSN president Caroline Senneville said. “The minister went out first to say, ‘oh no, it’s not going to touch the services.’ We’ve heard that before, it isn’t true. Now he’s backing off a little and he’s saying, ‘well, we’re going to try to hurt as little as possible the services.’ But the thing is, services are already stretched to their limits.”

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé did indeed acknowledge cutting $1.5 billion could impact services, but that efforts will be made to minimize it.

According to Government of Quebec statistics, as of Feb. 22, there were 2,050 fewer employees in the health and social services network compared to Nov. 30, 2024, the day before Santé Québec took over managing the province’s health network.

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” said Félix Sylvestre, who works in logistics at the CHUM. “It’s been 25 years since I’m in the system. It’s the third reform we got and I’ve never see something like that. I’m really afraid.

“It’s only about money, not about people, not about workers, not about patients.”

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Quebec health-care workers say the consequences of these cuts can already be seen.

Postponed surgeries, lack of funding, underutilized equipment for important tests, lack of access to rehabilitation, gaps in the monitoring of patients with chronic illnesses: the repercussions of these cuts are numerous, they say.

“Lack of everything,” said Armando Rafael, an orderly and the vice-president of CSN Infomob at the CHUM. “So it’s just essentially, you’re waiting. So before you get a service that’s taken care of, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. You could be in your soiled pants for the whole afternoon because there’s nobody there to come and change you.”

Added Anick Mailhot, the president of the CSN employees at the CHUM: “The worst part is that the patients are not getting operated. And it has a very bad consequence on them. And that’s why the government goes to the private sector to get these people operated because we don’t have enough people to take care of them.”

Senneville wants Santé Québec and Quebec’s health ministry to stop relying on the private sector to provide services.

“Stop giving money to the private sector,” she said. “They charge us more. They get together to hike up the prices as we’ve seen in the newspaper this week. And I mean, if we had cut out on agencies years ago, like we asked to, we wouldn’t have to make these cuts.”

In a written response to CityNews, Santé Québec says work continues to analyze the measures to return to a balanced budget as quickly as possible, adding it is carrying out this exercise while attempting to minimize the impact on patients.

“They have to stop the cuts,” said Mailhot. “They have to put back the people that have been cut.”

Last week, Quebec’s medical professionals called for an end to the government’s health-care cuts, which they claim compromise “the accessibility and quality of care.”

The president of the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec (FMSQ), Dr. Vincent Oliva, and vice-president of the FMSQ and president of the Association des spécialistes en médecine d’urgence du Québec, Dr. Gilbert Boucher, held a press conference on the cuts in Quebec’s health network in anticipation of the next provincial budget being tabled March 25.

Doctors working in the province have long warned that government cuts will affect services.

They say job cuts and hiring freezes in the context of labour shortages, suspension of programs, halting the purchase and non-renewal of equipment, non-authorization of additional time despite waiting lists are impacting patients and aggravating the pressure on an already weakened network.