Nunavik health board fears Quebec’s new law on professional standards

“Plan Nunavik: Nunavik, past, present and future” says there are seven “pre-conditions to Nunavik Inuit support for Plan Nord,” which must be met over the next three to five years. Number four of those “pre-conditions” says “health services in Nunavik require substantial additional human and financial resources from Quebec that are culturally adapted to Nunavik Inuit.” (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

KUUJJUAQ — If you’re an Inuk social worker in Nunavik, you could be out of a job later this year.

Nunavik’s Hudson Bay coast communities stand to lose two-thirds of their youth protection workers if Quebec decides to implement a law that amends its professional standards for mental health and human relations workers.

The amendments in Bill 22, which were approved in 2009, but haven’t been implemented yet, are intended to protect the public and improve “the judicious use of human resources.”

The changes would require all workers in social services and health related jobs, such as social workers, mental health workers and speech therapists, to obtain specific levels of education and hold recognized diplomas.

But in Nunavik these requirements could lead to disaster, says the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.

That’s because many Inuit health and social services workers in Nunavik would no longer be qualified to work in their present positions.

If the changes go ahead, the health board wants to see a 20-year moratorium on any move to make the region’s mental health and human relations workers fall under the proposed law.

Outside of Kuujjuaq and Puvirnituq, where there are two hospitals, two in three social services workers in Nunavik are Inuit.

They, and other health and social services workers, can take courses now offered through Collège Marie-Victorin in Nunavik, but they don’t hold professional or occupational health diplomas yet, the health board says.

In a letter sent earlier this year to Quebec’s deputy minister of health and social services, the health board said Inuktitut-speaking social worker assistants and community liaison wellness workers “play a key role in promotion and prevention in matters of mental health, addictions and family violence as well as in the provision of front-line services and youth-protection services.”

The board said Bill 21’s implementation would also make it more difficult for non-Inuit to continue to work in Nunavik. That’s because many social workers and human relations workers who support Inuit are not members of professional associations either.

As a result of the changes, the health board would need more money to hire new workers and to pay for more interpreters.

The new law would also limit what technicians in specialized education could do, so it could also interfere with the services provided at group homes, rehabilitation centres and schools.

What Nunavik needs is more money and more people to provide health services, the health board says, pointing to Plan Nunavik, Nunavik’s response to Quebec’s Plan Nord, the 25-year plan to develop the northern portion of Quebec.

The hardcover Plan Nunavik: Nunavik, past, present and future , first produced in 2010, was recently printed in a new softcover edition by Avataq Cutural Institute in Inuktitut, French and English — to be distributed throughout Nunavik, to every household.

The 140-page book, whose book jacket shows an ice floe seen from above, states that there are seven “pre-conditions to Nunavik Inuit support for Plan Nord,” which must be met over the next three to five years.

Number four of those “pre-conditions” says “health services in Nunavik require substantial additional human and financial resources from Quebec that are culturally adapted to Nunavik Inuit” — not a new restrictive law.

Meanwhile, the health board has heard back from Quebec’s health department, which said the new law’s implementation now lies in the hands of the group which sets standards for professions in Quebec, l’Office des professions du Québec.