MONTREAL -- As Quebec's healthcare system continues to bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, education system employees are finding themselves being called into action.

Dawson College Director General Richard Filion said his school is among those that have been contacted and told to draw up a list of teachers who can be sent as reinforcements for healthcare workers.

“We're in a war time, so if we understand well, every single resource that can be mobilized to carry the load is needed,” he said.

On April 10, Health Minister Danielle McCann signed a ministerial order allowing the provincial government to redeploy staff from school boards and CEGEPs to the healthcare sector.

Filion said all of the 12 colleges on the Island of Montreal have been asked to provide lists of qualified staff who can fill roles in areas such as nursing, lab technicians, radio-oncology, physiotherapy and social services.

“There's a lot of people in the healthcare sector that are close to exhaustion, some of them may be sick at this point in time,” he said. “It looksl ike there's a need for additional resources getting into the health sector to help them out.”

Among the first who are likely to be redeployed are those who teach nursing such as Fiona Hanley, an instructor at Dawson's Faculty of Nursing.

“Certainly there's a pull that they feel, to want to be able to help in some way,” she said. “At the same time, we have also divided loyalties because we also have an obligation to our students and to their education and to help them complete their path to becoming nurses.”

The Dawson administration said they will make sure the government is aware of health conditions that may exclude staff from working in healthcare. Handly said she hopes the situation will teach some valuable lessons.

“I don't think this will be the last time we have a pandemic,” she said. “I think we need to do some realy good planning so we know how to tackle this the next time something like this comes along.”