Quebec hospitals ask for values charter exemption

Hospitals and health-care institutions across Quebecare asking for a permanent exemption fromthePartiQubcois'sproposed ban on workers wearing religious symbols.

The Quebec Association of Health and Social Service Institutionssaid it's worried the province willlosestaff if the ban becomes law.

"Many managers in the institutions have some fears that we might lose some people because they will prefer to go somewhere else," saidDenisPerras, spokesman forassociation, at a press conference in Montreal today.

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Perrassaidthe provincealready has difficultlyrecruiting and retaining qualified health care workers and that a ban could only make it worse.

No religious symbolproblems reported

The association said it surveyed its members across the province, asking if they had ever had a problem with a staff member wearing a religious symbol.

"There is no problem, absolutely no problem in all the institutions," saidPerras.

None of theinstitutions surveyed reportedhavingan issue with staff wearing religious symbols,Perrassaid, and they wantan exemptionfrom any kind of ban.

Perrassaid the association is not against some rules governing religious accommodation, but thatthe ban on religious symbols is "solving a problem that doesn't exist."