Backgrounder - Health Canada
Office of the Commissioner's Audit of Direct Health Care Services
The Office of the Commissioner’s audit was conducted at Health Canada’s head office in the National Capital Region and at the Quebec regional office. We interviewed various managers and staff members at the head office and at the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch in Quebec, as well as persons responsible for official languages. Telephone calls were also made to the Quebec offices. We mainly reviewed the policies, directives, organizational structure, third party contribution agreements, contracts awarded to health professionals, institutional reports and other documents provided by the Department. We also reviewed relevant procedures and systems implemented by Health Canada.
In the Quebec region, the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch provides nursing care and oral health care. This care is provided on the reserves where there are no contribution agreements with the bands for managing these services. The First Nations and Inuit represent a restricted and identifiable clientele because they meet the criteria of paragraph 6(1)(a) of the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations and Treasury Board Directive C. As a result, Health Canada is required to provide bilingual services to the following communities:
| Nursing care | Dental care |
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RESULTS
Strengths:
- Health Canada managers are determined to comply with their linguistic obligations in relation to health care services.
- The Department has appropriate official language policies in place and makes significant efforts to communicate them to managers.
- The Department complies with Treasury Board Directive C in identifying offices that must provide health care to a restricted and identifiable clientele.
Opportunities for improvement:
- The Department does not have appropriate monitoring mechanisms in place to ensure compliance with the Official Languages Act in relation to health care services.
- There are no mechanisms in place to assess language proficiency and the quality of services provided in both official languages by health professionals hired on contract.
- There is a lack of active offer in both official languages in person, on the telephone and on voice mail.
- The language level B that is currently required is too low, given the complexity of the issues handled by the nursing staff. These tasks instead require level C for oral interaction.
In order to ensure that adequate health care is provided to Health Canada’s official language minority clientele in their language of choice, the Commissioner has made six recommendations:
- Recommendation: That Health Canada ensure its designated bilingual offices fully comply with the requirements of section 28 of the Official Languages Act concerning active offer in person, on the telephone and on voice mail.
- Recommendation: That Health Canada raise the linguistic profile of nursing positions for oral interaction and of non-insured health benefits eligibility officers who have an asymmetrical profile and review the number of bilingual positions required in these two job categories in the Quebec region.
- Recommendation: That Health Canada verify whether the incumbents of nursing positions and non-insured health benefits eligibility officer positions, whose linguistic profiles have been raised, meet these new requirements. In cases where the incumbents do not meet these new requirements, the Department must take measures to ensure equal health care in both official languages at all times.
- Recommendation: That Health Canada implement a monitoring mechanism to ensure compliance with its linguistic obligations in relation to the provision of health care services in Quebec.
- Recommendation: That Health Canada ensure health professionals hired on contract in Quebec have the required language skills.
- Recommendation: That Health Canada implement a monitoring mechanism to ensure the quality of services provided in both official languages by health professionals hired on contract in Quebec.
