Quebec nurses who study part-time feel stung by workload increase

As the CAQ government promotes its new health-care plan, promising improved working conditions for nurses, some younger nurses who work and study part-time say their voices aren't being heard.

"I feel like we're being left behind in some way," Marie-Pier L'Ecuyer, a nurse who works part-time at an institution in the West-Central Montreal health agency, told CBC in an interview.

"It feels bad. I feel like I'm up against a brick wall," Garrett Johnson, another nurse who works for the same health agency, told CBC.

Johnson and L'Ecuyer both began their nursing careers after graduating last spring. Both opted to work part-time while continuing their studies.

And now both are being now forced by their new collective agreement to double the number of shifts they work, a requirement that has them considering leaving the public system.

Only full-time students exempt

CBC first reported on how the workload increase is affecting part-time nurses two weeks ago.  Since then some nurses who work and study part-time, including Johnson and L'Ecuyer, reached out to share how the change is affecting them.

The new collective agreement between the government and the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) was signed last fall. The measure targeting part-time nurses has been gradually rolling out across the province since then.

Under the previous agreement, part-time nurses were required to work at least eight shifts over a 28-day period — two shifts a week. The new collective agreement increases that number to 14 shifts over a 28-day period, nearly doubling the workload.

The measure is mandatory for all part-time nurses in the public system, with a few exceptions. Nurses who are studying full-time are exempt, and can continue to work two shifts a week.

But nurses such as Johnson and L'Ecuyer, who study part-time, have to double their number of shifts.

Nurses thinking of quitting

For L'Ecuyer, the change took effect in January. After earning her bachelor's in nursing, she is now studying to get a master's degree in law. She wants to specialize in health law and policy. 

The new collective agreement meant she either had to add more work hours or add more school hours in order to keep her job.

L'Ecuyer decided to go from part-time studies to full-time, so she could keep working two days a week. The change has been intense.

"I'm not going to be able to maintain this type of schedule for the entirety of my master's," she said. She still has two years of classes left, and a thesis to write after that.

"It's extremely demanding, sometimes overwhelming," she said.

"I'm thinking of going to work for a private agency," L'Ecuyer said.

Johnson graduated with a CEGEP diploma in nursing last spring. Now he's studying part-time to get his bachelor's degree while working two or three shifts a week. For him, the increased workload is set to take effect April 10.  

He said once that happens, he'll only have one day off every two weeks during the school year.

"I will look very intensely at leaving my position," Johnson said.

"I really love where I work, but one of the huge benefits in the private sector is that they offer very flexible schedules," he said.

"My education is more of a priority for me. I'll choose that over maintaining a position that is going to cause me to burn out," Johnson said.

Frustration with union

Like other nurses CBC spoke to previously about the forced workload increase, Johnson and L'Ecuyer both feel overlooked by their union, the FIQ, which agreed to the workload increase for part-timers.

"I feel we're not well represented, like a decision was made that didn't consider all the younger nurses," L'Ecuyer said.

Johnson said when the union pitched the new collective agreement to members, it never mentioned the obligatory workload increase.

"Basically all I heard was like, we're going to get you better pay,"  Johnson said.

"I didn't know about that increased workload, and I still didn't even believe it when I saw it," he said.

'Hopeless'

Health Minister Christian Dubé said yesterday the goal is to reduce forced overtime and the health-care system's reliance on private agencies.

"It feels like it's going to have the opposite effect, where it's going to drive people further to that," Johnson said.

"People who are new to the profession all of a sudden are getting a bad taste in their mouth," he said.

L'Ecuyer said she doesn't feel like her working conditions are being improved.

"We're the next generation of nurses. We are the future," she said.

"We've been taught that bedside nursing is not the only option. We have so many opportunities, whether it's research or teaching," she said,

"We've been taught to keep pushing. Being ambitious is a good thing," L'Ecuyer said.

"But now the government is saying: 'Stop, you have to be bedside nurses because that's where we're missing the most people right now in the public system,'" she said.

"It's unfortunate.  I feel it's a little bit hopeless," L'Ecuyer said.

Union says support is available

In a statement emailed to CBC Tuesday, a spokesperson for the FIQ, Liliane Côté, said the union is aware of the challenges for part-time students and that it is working on solutions.

"The study period is a temporary period, and mechanisms exist to ensure that students have a lower workload," Côté said.

"Demands can be made to the employers to ensure that leave without pay for study, or part-time leave without pay for study are granted to health-care professionals wishing to continue their studies," she said.

She said employees affected should contact the union for support.

In a statement to CBC, a spokesperson for the health ministry, Marie-Claude Lacasse, noted that the workload increase was the result of a negotiated collective agreement.

"It is the result of a common will of the parties to put in place measures aimed at improving the working conditions of nursing and cardio-respiratory care personnel,"  Lacasse said.

"The ministry is confident that this increase will make it possible to ensure better stability of the work teams by granting more full-time positions, offering better schedule predictability for the personnel and, consequently, a better balance between work and personal life," she said, adding it will also reduce the use of overtime and independent labour. 

Lacasse noted that full-time students are exempt from the measure. The statement didn't make any mention of part-time students.