Financing of GAP: Dubé accuses general practitioners of taking patients hostage

The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, warns the Federation of General Practitioners of Quebec (FMOQ) as June 1 approaches, the date on which the agreement he concluded with it regarding the Guichet must end access to the first line (GAP) and its financing.

At the heart of the dispute: a lump sum of $120 offered by Quebec to family medicine groups (GMF) for each orphan patient taken care of through the GAP.

This new standoff comes at a time when the agreement concluded 18 months ago between Quebec and the FMOQ must end in exactly one week and that the two parties are engaged in intense negotiations concerning the overall remuneration of general practitioners.

These talks are far from over and no transitional measures have been planned to maintain the financial incentive offered to GMF in order to continue to offer time slots to GAPunderlines the FMOQ.

Faced with this state of affairs, groups of family doctors have sent numerous letters to the deputies of the CAQ to plead their case in recent days, arguing that the $120 flat rate offered by the government is necessary to continue offering the same level of service.

These missives, identical in every respect, warn among other things that GAP”,”text”:”several doctors will not be able to continue at the same pace or will stop offering time slots to meet the GAP”}}”>several doctors will not be able to continue at the same pace or will stop offering time slots to meet the GAP and if this is the end of the deal for the government, it will also be the end for family doctors.

Cutting resources and commitments will not allow us to continue at the same level, explain the authors of the letter. There is a risk of dismantling of organizations established according to the new work organization that was being developed.

According to The Saint-Hyacinthe Courierof the GMF even wrote to their patients who had passed through the GAP to inform them that without this agreementthey will no longer be able to receive.

In addition, new data obtained by Radio-Canada from a Source shows a radical drop in the number of appointments made by family doctors through the GAP after June 1, going from 18,398 appointments for the week that begins to only 5,699 appointments the following week.

Present at the general council of the CAQ in Saint-Hyacinthe, Saturday, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, deplored that doctors’ unions gave a watchword to their troops.

I will never accept that patients are taken hostagehe repeated in the press scrum, as he had first done in front of the activists.

The minister, who admitted that he didn’t get along with family doctors on how to renew the GAPcomplained again about the disinformation conveyed by their representatives at the negotiating table according to which his government wanted to tear up the agreement concluded a year and a half ago.

According to Mr. Dubé, the resistance demonstrated by the union leadership of the FMOQ is simply not representative of the opinion of doctors themselveswhich would be loans to accept the changes he proposes.

A little earlier, Prime Minister Legault, at the same general council, had also admitted to the press that the current negotiations are not not easy with doctors’ unionsincluding that of family doctors, and that he had concerns for the coming weekswhich, according to him, will be very hard.

With information from Véronique Prince