March is the month of La Francophonie in Canada, a celebration of the importance of the French language and culture. Here in Manitoba, many of the network agencies who make up Réseau Compassion Network have bilingual mandates, including St. Boniface Hospital and Centre de santé Saint-Boniface. Providing health and social services in French continues to be both a deeply rewarding, though sometimes challenging proposition.
Julie Lessard is the coordinator for Francophone Health at St. Boniface Hospital, a role she has held for nearly four years. Even in her relatively short time in the position, there have been many evolutions in the hospital. “There is more and more talk about inclusion, accessibility and diversity,” she explains. “We can’t promote these visions if we’re not able to offer service in a person’s mother tongue. If we are to talk about patient care, it’s about way more than just the physical. You are truly meeting someone’s needs when you’re able to speak French with them.”
In her time at the hospital, she has seen a name change in her area from French Language Services to Francophone Health. “We are not just offering services in French, it’s so much more than that,” Lessard clarifies. “Francophones in Manitoba refer to our facility as ‘l’Hôpital de chez nous’ – our hospital. But even our francophone population is changing. As more and more French-speaking immigrants arrive in Winnipeg, we want to develop programming and services for them, and help recruit them into the healthcare system, professionally. We will evolve with our community.”
Lessard’s day-to-day work can vary greatly, from presentations and resourcing to linguistic evaluations and partnerships in the community. “We have 42 bilingual volunteers in the hospital, we’re recently registered our largest ever cohort of staff for French classes at Université de Saint-Boniface, and we translated over 82,000 words this year,” she shares. “We often have staff who are recognized provincially for their work in French. There is so much being done, and we really do all give 110% to make sure that anyone looking to work or receive care in French can do that here.”
Close by, the Centre de santé Saint-Boniface offers a wide range of primary care services in French. Out of their approximately 8,000 clients, 70% are Francophone. There is such a demand for health care in French that Stéphanie Roy, Executive Director at the Centre, says there is talk of a second site. “Right now, we are welcoming patients from Winnipeg only,” she explains. “There are a lot of people we’re missing, we always have a waiting list. And if someone lives just outside the city and would like to receive care in French, we’d like to provide that, too.”
In Manitoba, 45% of health care positions that are designed as bilingual are unfilled, which is not the case at the Centre de santé Saint-Boniface, “We’re special and lucky to be a truly bilingual environment,” shares Roy. “We have high employee retention rates. We take good care of our staff and offer many educational opportunities. Most of all, I think staff value being able to work and care for clients in French; it truly matters to them.”
Roy is part of the Vitalité santé! initiative that brings together a working group made up of 22 bilingual organizations who are trying to find ways to increase and improve bilingual employee engagement and retention in healthcare and social services fields*. “We know where the gaps are in our communities, and we know we have to prepare for the future,” she says. “We need to do a better job of attracting young people to careers in health and social services, find better ways to integrate Francophone immigrants into our healthcare system, and to better support our employees who already speak French. This is an excellent opportunity for all of us to work together and develop processes to strengthen the French-language health care system in Manitoba.”
* To learn more about Vitalité santé!, please click here.