2023-08-12 08:08:04
“Are you bored with long waits?” Think of the private medicine of the Medical City. Availability is offered to you very quickly. The advertisement scrolls in a loop on the screen of the waiting room of the GMF of the Cité médicale de Sainte-Foy. Citizens who receive care covered by the public plan in this clinic denounce the practice.
The Medical City makes no secret of it: it offers public and private medical services “under one roof”, it writes on its website. In its clinics in Sainte-Foy and Charlesbourg, patients are followed by family doctors who practice in a family medicine group (GMF), and others pay privately to receive care from “non-participating” doctors. to the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ).
Roger Bertrand, a patient cared for by the GMF of the Cité médicale de Sainte-Foy, finds it “scandalous” that the clinic promotes its private services to patients in the public network. “It’s probably legal, but ethically I find it very questionable,” said the 76-year-old. We are providing a service that is covered by the public system and we are taking advantage of this to promote our own small business. I find that to be incorrect. »
Roger Bertrand filed a complaint with the CIUSSS of the Capitale-Nationale, which replied that he might not examine it, the Medical City not being “not under its jurisdiction”. He reported the situation to the Health and Welfare Commissioner, Joanne Castonguay, as well as to the MNAs who are members of the Committee on Health and Social Services. He also started an online petition.
The patient took these steps as a citizen. A wise citizen: the former PQ MP for Portneuf was President of the National Assembly and Minister for Health, Social Services, Youth Protection and Prevention in Bernard Landry’s cabinet.
He hopes that elected officials will adopt, “if they deem it appropriate, a legislative provision that would defend this kind of practice”. “Or simply, on the administrative level, that there is a directive from the ministry [de la Santé] which asks private clinics to refrain from such practices,” he adds.
Reaction of the Medical City
Joined by The dutythe medical director of the Sainte-Foy Medical Center, Dr.r Michel Lafrenière, indicates that he has asked his staff to check whether this promotion is indeed broadcast on GMF screens. “I remember it was an advertisement that had been offered before, but I didn’t think it was on the televisions. If it is, it will be removed. That is quite clear. This is not the right place to advertise. »
The Dr Lafrenière ensures that the GMF and the private clinic are “two totally different departments”, which have “their own clientele” and which remain sealed. “We don’t do both private and public. Doctors who work in the private sector only work in the private sector. There is a very strict law that prevents doctors from doing both. There is no one at the clinic who plays right and left, ”he says.
He specifies that regarding fifty doctors practice in the FMGs of Sainte-Foy and Charlesbourg, and five in the private sector.
Asked regarding this advertisement broadcast in a FMG, the Ministry of Health and Social Services replied that it “does not regulate the content displayed by FMGs, which are private clinics where physicians participating in the RAMQ practice”. “This situation may, however, raise ethical and deontological questions,” we wrote in an email.
Malaise
Nicole Quintal, a patient from Quebec City, feels uneasy regarding this cohabitation of public and private at the Cité Médicale. “These are the same premises. You have the counter for the very ordinary public; you continue further and you arrive with the beautiful carpet and the beautiful glass door, and there, it’s private, with beautiful armchairs, ”she describes.
Mme Quintal only used the private services of the Sainte-Foy clinic once, for a knee problem. “I was desperate,” says the 67-year-old woman. Supported by a GMF of Quebec (which is not the Medical City), she must go through the telephone line of the first line access counter (GAP) to obtain a medical appointment. “Waiting at 811 [option] 3 was endless,” she argues.
She claims to have gone beyond her “principles” during this first private experience. “I tell myself that we are already paying for this health service there, that they are not able to give us, and me, because I have the money to afford this appointment, I pass in front of the people, and I have the beautiful armchair where there is no one. It’s sad. »
Roger Bertrand emphasizes having had access to a doctor from the GMF of the Cité Médicale de Sainte-Foy on three occasions via the GAP. “I have no complaints regarding the services received,” he specifies. It’s just that we are exposed to [du privé] when you sit down and wait for service. And that, I have great difficulty accepting that, because there has been a systematic erosion of the public health care system for several years now. »
He believes that this erosion will accelerate with Bill 15, which aims to make the health and social services system “more efficient”. He also submitted a brief to the Health and Social Services Commission during the consultations on the bill.
“If, in all the private clinics that were to expand, we started doing similar , how might we complain that there are doctors, general practitioners in particular, who decide to practice in these places there? ” he asks.
With Francois Carabin
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