Residences with continuous assistance | Silent demonstrations in Montérégie to denounce health and safety risks
October 30, 2024
Longueuil – On the day before Halloween, members of the APTS (Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux) held silent demonstrations outside residences with continuous assistance (RACs) in Montérégie to highlight the significant occupational health and safety risks to employees who work there.
“The conditions in which our members provide services to some of the most vulnerable members of our society send shivers down the spine,” says Isabelle Mantha, APTS provincial representative for the Montérégie. “Threats, aggression and injuries are common, and these are risks that should be reported under the Act respecting occupational health and safety. We need to stop trivializing them and start acting preventively. Facilities have to be adapted to better meet these clients’ needs, while ensuring employee safety.”
Issues of safety and violence in RACs are a major concern. For the year 2023-2024 alone, 483 incident report forms were submitted to the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest, 367 of them directly linked to risks of violence. Of these, 53 led to employees stopping work.
Break the vicious circle of staff shortages
Difficult working conditions can’t be separated from the enormous difficulty attracting and retaining employees for RACs. Across the province in 2023-2024, 22.4% of hours worked in RACs involved independent workers. This rate has grown significantly and steadily since 2016. The APTS believes there needs to be a real push to attract resources back to this essential public mission.
“It’s high time that occupational health and safety challenges be taken seriously,” says APTS vice-president Joël Bélanger. “RACs are among the settings in the public system where workplace aggression and injuries are most common. These services require a major reinvestment, both in terms of infrastructure and human resources. We are calling on the government to champion those who receive services for an intellectual disability or autism spectrum disorder and to make this often-neglected sector a priority.”
The APTS calls on the Minister of Social Services, Lionel Carmant, to ensure that institutions in the public system have the resources they need to meet their occupational health and safety obligations, and to closely monitor the situation in RACs so that they can offer more accessible, better quality services in Montérégie and the rest of Québec.
The APTS
The APTS (Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux) represents more than 65,000 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.
