Mr. Ouellet just referred to many of the factors that contribute to violence, such as excessive workloads and budget cuts. In addition, new public management tools have been introduced together with increasing numbers of performance indicators.
This obsession with efficiency dehumanizes the care provided and the impact on our health professionals. The series of reforms that have been made to the health system in Quebec has absorbed all vital energy and created even larger institutions. The result is a depleted, even exhausted, health sector in which violence levels are rising. These megastructures aren't conducive to proximity management.
Among these reforms, the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients makes it even more difficult to provide safe care. Teams travel to unsecure and unmonitored places to provide services such as in-home support. In addition, the closure of mental health emergency services doesn't reduce the number of patients.
The obstacles and risk factors are significant, and safeguards are inadequate to address their scope. However, we're convinced this is an issue for which every measure counts in building a culture of prevention.
First, FIC demands that the health sector be recognized as a priority group within the meaning of the Act respecting occupational health and safety. That measure would require employers to meet four obligations arising from the act: to establish a prevention program, to create a health program specific to an establishment, to strike an occupational health and safety committee and to designate a prevention representative.
In Quebec, with regard to psychological health, we can rely, in particular, on the provisions of the Act respecting labour standards. However, there is a gap between having a right and being able to exercise it.
We also have the National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, which is an excellent tool, although its application is voluntary and not widespread.
We spoke about the increasing size of institutions, which creates a distance with managers. There is also a significant gap between the percentage of female care professionals and the number of women managers. In fact, 6% of health managers are men, although they form approximately 10% of the profession, and only 6% of managers are women, whereas they represent nearly 90% of the profession. The question should be why there are so few women in management. Could their presence there improve the situation regarding the violence our members experience?
For many years now, the federation has prioritized, and still prioritizes, action to establish new health professional-patient ratios. The state of knowledge, international experience and ratio projects introduced by FIQ confirm that sufficient numbers of health professionals can provide safe and more humane care. They can do it under an adequate workload in an environment conducive to their occupational health and safety.
The system must consider the needs of professionals to a greater degree, those of pregnant workers who must be reassigned to safe settings and those of female professionals experiencing various forms of violence. Prevention must take precedence, and the violence must stop.
FIQ is greatly concerned about the rate of violence in all forms in the health system. We very much hope that union-management cooperation can finally be established in our institutions so we can address this constantly rising scourge.
I would like to bring to your attention the fact that we just received the report of Quebec's auditor general today, many of findings of which are consistent with those of our federation. They include the fact that Quebec lags significantly behind other administrations and that there are persistent inequities among prevention workers.
Thank you for listening.