The Government of Quebec declares ESSENTIAL SERVICES that must be open, AS PRIORITY 1:
1. “All occupations in the health and SOCIAL SERVICES network”.
The Board Directors of Hellenic Community of Greater Montreal has shut down the Social Services department, in a time needed the most, and contrary to Government guidelines. HCGM Blocks social services workers computer access, contrary to Government recommendations that employers should allow employees working from home.
The «raison d’être» of the HCGM is to provide Social Services to the community. In this crisis lots of citizens depend on social services to assist them and support them through this hardship.
Furthermore, the Social Services department is Government funded and salary is subsidized by the Government, yet, the HCGM sends these ESSENTIAL Social Workers home to collect Unemployment Insurance.
“What a sad state of affairs! The Social Services of the Hellenic Community of Greater Montreal should have ramped up its much needed essential services as required by the government instead of shutting them down. Our elderly population needs now, more than ever with this deadly pandemic, a life line in their own language. Instead of eliminating staff they should have added staff (perhaps from other departments such as teachers, etc) to answer questions and give directives through a Hotline. A Hotline announced through our mass and social media. The HCGM’s raison d’etre at this time of COVID-19 fear and uncertainty should be comforting our most vulnerable citizens.” said Dr. Theodore Halatsis, president of the Canadian Hellenic Congress.
Meanwhile, the HCGM kept their Public Relations department to produce clickbait amateur videos on fαcebοοκ with unnecessary content which is already produced by professional broadcasters to serve our community at large.
Pursuant to the Government of Quebec, Public Relations Operations are Non-Essential Services, and must cease operating. On the other hand, Professional Media and Broadcasters are Essential Services. And here we have a situation where the HCGM closed a Top-Priority Essential Service (Social Services dept.) and kept a non-essential service (Public Relations dept) to produce amateur content already being served to the community by Professional Media, overtaking Essential Services, at the expense of top-priority essential services.
