News

Longueuil – The APTS (Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux) has taken note of the “Mieux chez soi” policy (“Better off at home”) announced today by the minister of health. The policy includes a number of measures that workers employed in this sector have been requesting for a long time. After years of watching budget cuts cause services to erode and prevention to be set aside, the APTS is asking the government for specific commitments to provide appropriate support for employees and informal caregivers in order to ensure that measures take concrete shape on the ground.

“The need for home care support is acute. It’s time to act,” said APTS president Robert Comeau. “We fully support an approach based on prevention, partnership and local services. But if we want this to work, we need to rely, above all, on the resources and expertise of the public system. This is crucial to ensuring the well-being of seniors and people facing loss of autonomy.”

The government’s intention to make CLSCs into the main point of entry into the system is a solution that the APTS has been recommending for years. However, this new orientation will require major reinvestments in order to revitalize services that have been undermined by budget cuts for far too long. It is also crucially important that service users and their loved ones be steered toward public or community resources as a first option, rather than private services.

The policy also proposes to make better use of the expertise of professionals and technicians employed by the public system. The APTS has been denouncing the excessive administrative burden imposed on its members for years, and is ready to cooperate in implementing the new approach. The union notes, however, that appropriate workforce planning is needed, as well as mechanisms to support genuine collaboration between professions.

The introduction of the home autonomy allowance, which acknowledges the key role played by informal caregivers, is also a step forward. For the APTS, whose members work on a daily basis with seniors – or people facing loss of autonomy – and their loved ones, this recognition is overdue. It will be important to ensure that eligibility criteria are not too restrictive.

The union is now waiting to see how deployment mechanisms for the new orientations are implemented. A robust and transparent action plan will be needed as well as firm financial commitments for the coming years and real coordination with front-line workers. This will require a break with the accounting logic generally preferred by the government.

The APTS

The APTS (Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux) represents more than 68,000 members who play a key role in ensuring that health and social services institutions run smoothly. Our members provide a wide range of services for all Quebecers, including diagnostic, rehabilitation, nutrition, psychosocial intervention, clinical support, and prevention services.