The Québec Ombudsman received a report about Naskapi local community service centre (CLSC), located near Schefferville. Staff shortages had allegedly caused service ruptures. The supervision of the staff was also at issue.
The Québec Ombudsman decided to intervene to see determine whether the care and service quality was compromised.
Findings
Several shortcomings were brought into focus:
- Access to mental health care was difficult. The same held true for effective follow-up after referral to psychosocial assistance resources.
- Use of means of control could not be done properly. The isolation room was unusable and police involvement was frequent. There were no guidelines for using chemical means of control.
- Users’ records failed to contain therapy plans. As a rule, computerized files were incomplete due to lack of in-house training.
The Québec Ombudsman also saw that the complaint-examination process was not well known to CLSC users. Furthermore, trust between the local population and non-indigenous CLSC professionals was fragile, if it existed at all.
The CLSC had already taken steps to recruit the staff needed:
- It had mandated a consultant to help improve its slate of psychosocial services;
- It had established 24/7 psychosocial on-call services;
- It had provided incentives in order to fill vacant positions.
However, the CLSC’s goals could not be met in the immediate future despite these initiatives.
The integrated health and social services centre (CISSS) in charge was informed about these shortcomings. The Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS) was as well. Both offered to help the CLSC in its efforts to get on track.
CLSC Naskapi’s actions showed that it took the situation very seriously. Nonetheless, the Québec Ombudsman considered that certain changes should made.
Recommendations
The Québec Ombudsman recommended that CLSC Naskapi implement various measures to:
- Improve the quality of its services and follow-up with service users;
- Use adequate means of control;
- Fill vacant positions;
- Create trust between the Iocal population and the CLSC.
It also recommended that MSSS and CISSS de la Côte-Nord support what the CLSC was doing. The recommendations were aimed at, among other things:
- Facilitating hiring and meeting staff training needs;
- Making the complaint-examination process better known to CLSC users.
The three bodies accepted the recommendations.
The Québec Ombudsman sees to it that the rights of health and social services network users are upheld. Want to report a troubling situation you have witnessed? Do you feel that the rights of a service user or several service users have not been respected? Report it by calling us at 1-800-463-5070 or by using our online complaint form.
