Several hundred nurses held a protest outside a long-term care facility on Gouin Blvd. during their lunch hour.

They are taking part in rotating, pop-up demonstrations to pressure the provincial government to improve their working conditions.

Their concerns include nurse to patient ratios, staffing levels in a variety of institutions, and overtime.

Nurses at the Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci long-term care facility say local negotiations with their employer, the CIUSSS of northern Montreal Island, have not been going well.

They are asking the provincial government to get involved with the labour talks.

"Here there are supposed to be negotiating and the employer are not. They're very strict, they don't want to negotiate with our union and it affects the patients and it affects our members," said Denyse Joseph, vice-president of the FIQ healthcare union.

"We need to increase staffing, we need to give them better working conditions."

Many more small protests are planned to take place across Quebec in the days and weeks to come.