2023-04-20 23:11:15
If Quebec really wants to put the patient at the heart of its major reform of the health network, users will have to be given a stronger voice. This was demanded by several speakers invited on Thursday to comment on Bill 15 in parliamentary committee.
On the second day of special consultations on the bill “An Act to make the health and social services system more efficient”, the parliamentarians notably heard from the patient director and scientific co-director at the Center of Excellence for Partnership with Patients and the public (CEPPP), Vincent Dumez.
While welcoming the bill as a whole, he said he was worried regarding the risk of seeing the defense of users’ rights weakened by the reduction in the number of users’ committees as well as by a possible loss of independence of the future governing boards versus current boards of directors.
Vincent Dumez mainly defended the concept of partner users, who currently number some 1,500 in Quebec. These are people with serious illnesses who have a long experience as patients.
“They are experts in their pathology and in navigating the network,” he argued. In his view, these patients are among the best placed to offer concrete solutions that have a considerable impact on access to care.
Yet these patient partners are absent from the bill. No specific role is entrusted to them in the organization chart submitted by the Minister of Health Christian Dubé.
Dr. Antoine Groulx, family doctor, who accompanied Mr. Dumez, concluded his speech by calling on elected officials to “let a little more humanism and benevolence enter” into the bill by listening to patients.
In the followingnoon, it was the Council for the Protection of the Sick (CPM) which took up the torch, asserting that “we are witnessing a form of erosion of citizen participation” and demanding a user committee to each care facility with an adequate budget to fulfill its role.
The CPM demanded greater citizen representation by asking that user representatives be elected and not appointed by Santé Québec.
A request to which Minister Christian Dubé seemed to want to accede.
In its brief, the CPM also suggested the possibility of playing the role of the National Users’ Committee created by the new law in order to avoid setting up a new structure. The organization is particularly concerned regarding the fact that the national committee is given a function of “monitoring” of the local committees.
The Minister of Health introduced Bill 15 last month. The voluminous document of nearly 1,200 articles notably provides for the creation of a new state corporation called Santé Québec.
This new structure will be responsible for coordinating the operations of the Quebec health network, while the department will retain its role of setting guidelines and allocating budgets.
In turn, the Provincial Association of Users’ Committees (RCPU) proposed to the Minister to participate in the evaluation of the state of the network of existing committees in order to find a compromise. Once once more, the minister seemed interested in the idea by opening the door to adding user committees or sub-committees to what his bill provides.
The RCPU also asked that the national users’ committee have the ear of the ministry and not only of Health Quebec in order to be able to influence orientations in addition to operations.
Regardless of the net result in terms of space granted to them, users will always have, as a last resort, the possibility of addressing their complaints commissioner.
Moreover, the president of the Regroupement des commissaires aux complaints et à la qualité du Québec, Jean-Philippe Payment, reported at the end of the day that his members welcomed their role in the bill, while proposing ways of improving to strengthen and expand their response capacity.
Finally, they welcome the possibility of reporting to a national commissioner with an overview of the network.
The Health and Social Services Commission will hear the next speakers on Bill 15 on May 9.
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