The aim is to get about 4500 nurses and
back into the public healthcare system. To make it happen the Quebec government is ready to pump about $1 billion into it.
In an announcement on Thursday, September 23, Premier Francois Legault said that the government would give $15,000 to full-time nurse as well as to those who are currently working part-time willing to work full time.
Currently only 60 per cent of nurses in the Quebec public system are working full time, a situation that the government intends to change as quick as it can.
The government is also offering $12,000 to retired nurses who choose to come back full-time.
Those financial incentives increases to $18,000 to nurses who take on full-time work in parts of the province that are particularly impacted by the labor shortage including areas such as Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Côte-Nord and Outaouais regions.
The 3,000 administrative workers that are being brought into the network are primarily to assist nurses with paperwork and other bureaucratic duties.
It’s estimated that nurses spend up to 30 per cent of their time filling out paperwork. The aim is for them to be better able to focus on caring for patients.
Addressing the chronic staffing crisis, Legault said the province is facing an exceptional situation made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic.
He told nurses: “Quebecers need you.”
The government is also looking to improve working conditions for nurses in the public network and promises that they will get priority for better work schedules over nurses hired through private placement agencies.
