Evidence of meeting #145 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was physicians.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Thank you very much.
Now we go to our very last question, with Mr. Davies.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
I don't know if it was Josette or Isabelle, but one of you used the term “horizontal workplace violence”. I'm just wondering if you could tell us what that means.
Registered Nurse, Canadian Nurses Association
“Horizontal” is basically same-level staff, so nurse to nurse, let's say, or physician to physician. “Vertical” would usually be hierarchical, such as a boss to an employee.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Okay. Thank you.
Madame Lapointe, if I understood correctly, you said that Quebec was behind the rest of the country in terms of dealing with workplace violence. If I understood that correctly, could you tell us pourquoi?
Vice-President, Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec
What I said comes from a report by Quebec's auditor general that was tabled in the National Assembly. Since we just saw it today, we haven't managed to examine it.
That report provides findings on occupational health and safety. It's the auditor general himself who says we're lagging far behind other organizations. The auditor general makes 11 recommendations and several findings, but we unfortunately didn't receive the report until this afternoon, and I haven't been able to read it. However, it contains an entire chapter on the subject.
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
It seems there are multiple factors that go into this, of course. One of them is understaffing.
Another one that was mentioned was this persistent culture among health care professionals, the expectation that workplace violence in health care is somehow expected and professionals just have to suck it up.
I'm wondering how prevalent that attitude is among your colleagues, and whether you have any suggestions about how we can change that culture.
Registered Nurse, Canadian Nurses Association
It is very prevalent. I would say that every person knows that at some point they will be treated badly, whether it's physically, such as being scratched or spat on, or through name-calling. It's very prevalent.
It is not reported, exactly because if we were to report every incident, that's all we'd be doing, and nothing comes out of it, so that's—
President, Concerned Ontario Doctors
It's also ingrained in institutions, especially when it's coming from someone in a position of authority or power within the institution.
Rather than actually addressing the problem, often the institution will do everything to protect the institution, and physicians, nurses and health care workers are then often driven out of the organization.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Our time's up.
I want to thank the panellists on behalf of the committee for bringing this almost personal information to us. We really appreciate it, and it will help us write a report that hopefully will help your situation, because we're certainly hearing about a serious problem that has to be addressed.
On behalf of the committee, thank you all very much.
Thank you to our friends in Quebec who were on video conference. It's not easy to do that. Thanks very much.
We're going to suspend the meeting for a minute, and then we have two small pieces of committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]