on friday, oqlf spokesperson chantal bouchard told 98.5 fm “there were several department chiefs who were identified during the visit to verify the service in question. it was not intrusive. the francization adviser did not (interfere) in the care” of patients.
bouchard added the visit was also intended to verify whether staff were “able to operate the biomedical equipment in french” and whether the instruction manuals were in french.
protest organizer mario napolitano, who leads the group bridging ethnic communities, said the government should leave language politics outside of hospitals and focus on the province’s health-care needs instead.
“the last thing we want is that we have our grandmother in the hospital and we have to put up with this. it’s unacceptable,” he said. “what they’re doing is pestering the staff to see if they’re working in french. this is an italian hospital where a lot of the doctors work in english. they have to stop with this because we’re losing our humanity as a society.
“focus on health care, on hiring nurses, not on hiring language inspectors. this is ridiculous. that’s the message that we want to get out.”
the visits to santa cabrini and to the jewish general hospital last year — where a language inspector requested donor plaques in english and yiddish also be done in french — are part of an effort by the oqlf to expand its inspections beyond businesses. the oqlf aims to ensure bill 96, the coalition avenir québec’s overhaul of the charter of the french language, adopted in 2022, is enforced.
bill 96 requires all government workers, including those in hospitals and nursing homes, use french “systematically” in written and oral communications with their clients, with certain exceptions, like emergencies. on friday,
two local liberal members of parliament denounced
a july 18 directive by quebec’s health ministry that stipulates the exceptional circumstances under which english can be spoken in hospitals and other medical facilities.