(Quebec) Not only will the target that the Legault government set for catching up on surgeries not be reached in December, but there is no longer any target.
Posted at 4:37 p.m.
Caroline Plante
The Canadian Press
This is what the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, admitted on Thursday during a press conference he organized in Quebec to provide an initial assessment of the Health Plan presented in 2022.
Currently, 10,707 Quebecers have been waiting for an operation for more than a year.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé
In May 2023, having missed his targets for 2021 and 2022, Mr. Dubé presented a third surgery catch-up plan which was to reduce the number of patients waiting for an operation for more than a year to 2,500, by as of December 31, 2024.
This will not be respected.
“I don’t think that at the current rate […] we will be able to reach 2500 in December, you would not take me seriously,” declared the minister, before adding that he did not have a new deadline “at the moment”.
Earlier, Prime Minister François Legault had conceded, during question period, that “we are talking about years to be able to empty the waiting lists.” According to him, “Quebecers understand the situation.”
The parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, instead suggested to him that the “social contract” in Quebec was broken.
“You pay taxes then, whether you are rich or poor, the public system will take care of you within a reasonable time, then it will be free. Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, this social contract was broken,” he said.
“Quebecers, they pay twice and they wait more than before: they pay once on their tax report then once on their credit card because they are forced to go to the private sector,” he said. -he added.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Liberal MP André Fortin
Liberal MP André Fortin spoke about Louise, a 70-year-old woman who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and had to wait 11 months before having surgery. It was too late; she now has to undergo chemotherapy.
“There are hundreds of cases like Louise in Quebec,” said interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay. In fact, more than 4,600 Quebecers are waiting for oncological surgery, 705 of whom are late, according to the Ministry of Health.
The situation is not improving. People are waiting longer to see their doctor, longer to see a specialist, longer to get their surgery. There it is, the assessment of Christian Dubé.
André Fortin, Liberal Party MP
PQ MP Joël Arseneau recalled that waiting times in emergency rooms have not decreased: Thursday morning, there were 31 hours of waiting at Saint-Jérôme Hospital, 30 hours at Maisonneuve Hospital. Rosemont and 27 hours at Anna-Laberge, he illustrated.
“Access to health care for Quebecers, […] it has deteriorated since the election of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), and everyone knows it, everyone sees it. Things are not getting better,” he complained.
At a press conference, Mr. Dubé said he was aware of the “challenges”, but was pleased to have signed an agreement with nurses, reduced the use of independent labor, as well as overtime compulsory, and increased admissions to medicine.
He promised that all Quebecers with a sun card will be taken care of by a health professional by the summer of 2026. Negotiations with doctors’ federations will therefore be “critical”, he said. recognized.
“There are things that we have improved,” insisted the Minister of Health. I see that the needle is moving. »
Private in health: a 2e mea culpa in 3 days
Furthermore, Christian Dubé continued, Thursday, to distance himself from the traditional position of the CAQ on the place of private health.
He first admitted at a press conference that his party had “overused” the private mini-hospitals project during the 2022 electoral campaign.
What I think is overused, or perhaps misunderstood, including us, when we were on the electoral campaign, perhaps we should have clarified what is private. Is it the building or is it the doctors?
Christian Dubé, Minister of Health
“When we talked about private hospitals, it was very clear to me after some time that we should have made it clear that it is the question of the building which is private, and not the principle of the private hospital in terms billing. »
Mr. Dubé also said he found it “unacceptable” that Quebecers were forced to go to the private sector to take a strep test, for example. “That’s why I said that at a given moment, we had to stop the private sector on certain aspects,” he said.
On Tuesday, he declared four times during an inquiry in the National Assembly that he wanted to “wean” the health network from the private sector, before apologizing, two hours later, for having used the wrong verb. .
Prime Minister Legault repeated this week that in his opinion, the private sector would remain complementary to the public network.
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