After having faced a difficult shortage of workers in the summer of 2021, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie – CHUS is taking steps to try to improve the situation for this coming summer. In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Yann Belzile the healthcare network’s director of human resources, communications, and legal affairs said that whereas the network was down 1,100 people last year, it stands to be missing up to 1,600 in the summer of 2022 without any kind of action plan in place.
“We’re talking about a workforce shortage that will likely continue for several years,” Belzile said, underlining the fact that the need to be able to staff healthcare facilities 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year-round in sometimes very specialized work adds an extra layer of complication to the work.
Faced with the added pressures of the pandemic in an already challenging field, the human resources director said that the system is also struggling a lot with worker retention, having lost as many as 3,000 employees in 2021.
