By Pierre Fontaine
A letter from the President of the CHUM Council of Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists (CMDP) addressed to its members made the headlines recently. In it, the President condemns the proliferation of senior management positions at the CHUM, along with one or several assistants and of the administrative support services, as well as the excessive recourse to special advisors, consultant firms,
including a few headquartered abroad. He also expressed his concerns that Bill 100, which requires a 10% reduction in supervisory and administrative staff, will not be complied with at the CHUM.
Last January 29, at a Board meeting, CHUM management defended its actions, claiming that the CHUM’s proportion of supervisory staff was below the Quebec average for University Hospital Centres.
Nonetheless, it was forced to admit that, not only will it be unable to reduce the number of hours worked by its administrative services this year, as required by the law, but it will also be asking the Government to grant it an exemption on this matter. It likewise admitted that it had increasedthe number of managers, an additional 24 since 2007, of which the largest part was done recently, pursuant to the transformation of the CHUM.
 

According to comments made by the Human Resources Manager, reported in La Presse: “We won’t have a deficit in 2012-2013, because we’re cutting back in several administrative services, including technical services, archives, hygiene and sanitation, as well as the secretaries who work at the management level, to name a few. We will comply with Bill 100 in terms of the budget, but not in terms of the hours worked. We would now like the Government to acknowledge the weight of the CHUM’s transformation upon our structures.”

 
In other words, the unionized employees will be paying the price of the budget cutbacks, while the number of managers proliferates in order to ensure the CHUM’s transformation. It should be recalled that this year, the CHUM has slashed the hours worked by its personnel by some 85,000 hours, in response to budget cutbacks imposed by the Government. Although the Human Resources Manager claims the opposite, these cutbacks necessarily affect the services provided, if only in that they increase the workloads of the remaining employees, when it isn’t directly the quantity and quality of the services that also pay the price.
Meanwhile, another controversy that was raised by the CMDP President’s letter was the question of the CHUM’s new logo. Senior management had to admit that consultations on the foregoing had been wanting, as the Board of Directors had not really been given a heads up about the subject beforehand. But beyond this aspect, one might wonder about the urgency and value of authorizing such an expenditure in the context of the current budget cutbacks, bluntly felt by CHUM employees. Indeed, it cost $35,000 to add a little image of a fellow, similar to those that identify the men’s restroom, next to the letters “CHUM”.