More and more Quebecers are resorting to the private sector to receive medical care and the CAQ government has toyed with the idea of modifying the allocation of family doctors based on the state of health, as if it were static and simple to measure.
These are just a few recent examples of how our healthcare system is failing.
Certainly, Minister Christian Dubé came back saying that Quebecers with a family doctor were going to keep him. But the scenario of depriving them if they were not sick enough was still considered.
Then, when we read that young people and parents of children are the most likely to pay to obtain private health services, that is really not surprising either.
Hoping for a miracle
It’s almost a miracle to get a doctor’s appointment for a child with an infection.
As for drying out in the emergency room, where it takes so long that they send you home and ask you to come back the next day, we can understand why the private option takes precedence.
Instead of improving access, the CAQ government is demonstrating that this recourse to the private sector must expand and has become inevitable.
It shows that our public health system, the pillar of our social-democratic society, is no longer holding up.
Opposite direction
In 2018, the CAQ promised a family doctor for every Quebecer. He has since abandoned this mirage.
When he submitted his health system reform project in March 2023, Minister Christian Dubé nevertheless promised that it would be more efficient, more humane and more efficient.
The minister, one of the few in the CAQ government to still benefit from a certain leniency, needs time. Except that we are far from the mark and that it is not going in the right direction.