This resignation will force the temporary closure of the hospital’s psychiatry unit, which treats nearly 300 patients per year and in which $ 1.3 million was invested last year.
“It is a saga that has lasted a long time,” told the Soleil Karine Igartua, president of the Association des médecins psychiatres du Québec. Several psychiatrists would have resigned over the years, but, in 2015, two moved to the Thetford Mines Hospital, where there would however be work for four.
They would then have been asked to take care of both the inpatient hospitalization, emergency room consultations, consultations in other specialties, consultations with family physicians and outpatient consultations.
Exhausting
“The administration asked them to do everything … It’s getting exhausting! In addition, the internal unit, the staff is not trained and we find ourselves in a dangerous situation. For example, if a patient is agitated, staff do not know how to intervene. Nursing practices are not up to standard, there is no psychologist and there is a lack of social workers. Externally, psychiatrists cannot be as efficient when they are understaffed, ”adds Ms. Igartua.
The two psychologists would have tried to solve the problem over several meetings with the administration for a year and a half. “But unfortunately things are not changing. Both psychiatrists were exhausted, but they still managed to recruit a third psychiatrist a week ago. She resigned after five days, ”says the president of the Association.
Not feeling they had the support of the hospital administration, the other two reluctantly followed suit, however opening an office across the street to continue seeing patients at the hospital. external.
Budget
“They asked that we come back to a model where it is general practitioners who hospitalize, they were told no. They asked for more staff, they were told that they did not have the budget, ”continues Karine Igartua.
Mental health budgets in Thetford Mines are indeed below what they should be, according to the president. “By way of comparison, in a hospital like the one in Montmagny, a town a little smaller than Thetford Mines, there are six psychiatrists.”
Ms. Igartua, who says this crisis is the first she’s been going through in five years at the head of the Association, also adds that Thetford Mines is not the only place in Quebec to experience a staff shortage.
“On the other hand, in Abitibi for example, agreements exist so that psychiatrists do not have to hospitalize patients and expectations are reduced by virtue of the reduction in staff. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like that in Thetford Mines, ”she concludes.
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