Quebec has announced plans to extend incentive bonuses reserved for medical imaging technologists to include those working at hospitals in Wakefield and Shawville.
Gatineau MNA Robert Bussière announced the expansion Thursday on social media.
“I am very pleased to announce that our government has agreed with the APTS union to extend bonuses for medical imaging technologists to all establishments in Outaouais, including the Wakefield and Shawville hospitals,” Bussière announced in French.
Bussière said technologists at the two hospitals are now eligible for annual bonuses of $18,000.
“With this agreement, we are ensuring the stability of the medical imaging workforce for the entire greater Outaouais region,” he said.
On Friday, Radio-Canada confirmed with an official from the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS) that the two sides had reached a verbal agreement on the bonuses for the two remaining hospitals.
Rural communities initially left out
At the end of May, the Quebec government announced annual bonuses of $22,000 for technologists at the Gatineau and Hull hospitals.
Following the announcement, elected officials and others in rural Outaouais called for similar incentives and the measure was extended to medical imaging technologists at the Papineau ($22,000) and Maniwaki ($18,000) hospitals.
The bonuses are meant to prevent staff from fleeing to better-paying jobs in Ontario.
In a news release on Thursday, public health advocacy coalition SOS Outaouais welcomed the government’s efforts to attract medical imaging technologists, but said the region still suffers from chronic underfunding.
SOS Outaouais also criticized the difference in bonuses offered to different hospitals.
“SOS Outaouais [is questioning] the disparity between the bonuses offered of $18,000 and $22,000 for the same work, which creates inequality among medical imaging technologists in different establishments in the region. It is crucial that the government [look into] this inconsistency to ensure fair treatment for all health-care workers in the Outaouais,” the coalition said in French.
Opinions divided
Josey Bouchard, a spokesperson for the group Pontiac Voice, is concerned that even with the bonuses, technologists will still leave rural areas to work in the city.
“We know that all the technologists that we have here have put in their papers to have a transfer toward the city to get the $22,000 bonus retention, so I don’t know if that will make a difference,” she said, “It’s frustrating.”
Pontiac Warden Jane Toller said she’s “absolutely delighted” by the announcement.
“For me, the biggest news is that the provincial government has listened to us,” she said.
“I know it’s a difference of $4,000, but after all we’ve been through, just to have been listened to and to have the government understand how important it was not to leave out the Shawville Hospital and the Wakefield Hospital.”