Government measures will create 'catastrophic' shortage of healthcare workers: FIQ

A federation of healthcare workers says the province is headed for a "catastrophic" shortage of workers in public health if it doesn’t back down on retirement-related measures.

The Federation interprofessionnelle de la sante du Quebec (FIQ) revealed Sunday the results of a poll it conducted in late March.

The union questioned a little more than 600 members between the age of 50 and 64 years old, and about 47 per cent say they plan on retiring during the next three years because of changes to the retirement age and pension reform put in place by the Couillard government.

FIQ President Regine Laurent says the Liberals will “imperil the quality and security of patient care” if it doesn’t backpedal on the measures it plans to implement.

About 62 per cent of those polled said they would be leaving the workforce because of the proposed change of the age of retirement without penalty from 60 to 62 years old, and 71 per cent say the increase of the penalty for taking an early retirement from 4 per cent to 7.2 per cent is behind their intention to retire.

The FIQ represents 65,000 workers, most of them nurses.

The poll was done by telephone and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.