Thibaud Hue 06:48, February 16, 2022
Quebec is facing a shortage of caregivers.
An understaffing that has increased since the health crisis.
To meet this crying need, the Quebec Ministry of Health has launched a mission to hire 3,500 foreign nurses in 2022. The French are in the line of fire in this massive recruitment and many accept for better working conditions.
The shortage of caregivers is hitting Quebec hard.
Retirement, career change… Many nurses are missing in Quebec hospitals and this air pocket is felt.
Especially in times of health crisis.
At the height of the Omicron wave in mid-January, he had missed up to 20,000 irreplaceable employees.
So the provincial Ministry of Health launched a massive recruitment drive.
The objective: to hire 3,500 foreign nurses in 2022. A measure that has won over many French people.
"Here we have a clinical judgment which is really important"
A salary multiplied by two, fewer patients to take care of, more responsibilities.
Leslie started a new life, hired as a nurse in Montreal.
No way for her to imagine returning to work in France.
"I was tired of not being listened to at my fair value. Here we have a clinical judgment which is really important. It goes through learning auscultation, reading electrocardiograms, skills normally reserved for doctors in France when there it is part of the basic training", she explains.
A move that therefore implies better working conditions but also more opportunities.
This young Frenchwoman was able to quickly progress in the hierarchy.
She recently went from emergency nurse to head of department.
An operation that she “could never have done in France” according to her, in any case without going through the School of Nursing Executives.
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Salaries 20 to 30% higher
Like her, more and more of them are tempted by the experience.
A godsend for Quebec hospitals.
Florent Verjus, head of the International Recruitment Office, specifies that the French are very easy to employ: "We are very happy to recruit them. They have recognized expertise in the mother-child unit, in intensive care, in the operating room "These are areas where we have a lot of needs. So it's really a win for us and for them."
Since the beginning of the year, 80% of nurses recruited by the International Recruitment Office have been French.
The explanation?
“We give back to their fair value what a nurse represents. We give them a career and higher salaries by 20 to 30%”, comments Florent Verjus.
“I saw during the pandemic that France was releasing bonuses, particularly for intensive care nurses. This shows that France is twenty years behind Quebec. We have had bonuses for precisely attracting them for light years. "
He adds: "We should not see this as a theft of resources on our part. It is rather: why are the resources leaving? What are we not offering to these resources so that they need to look elsewhere."