2023-07-14 04:05:00
The Legault government will open 404 new places in the faculties of medicine over the next three years, with the aim of giving a little oxygen to the health network.
Our Parliamentary Office has learned that the number of medical admissions is to be increased in the new three-year plan, which will be announced shortly.
While 969 places were available last year, this figure will rise to 1043 for the year 2023-2024, then to 1134 for the following two years.
In the next three-year plan, 256 new places should be added for the year 2026-2027.
Quebec thus plans to respect its electoral promise to add 660 medical students during the mandate.
Investments in health
“We would have liked to announce more, but we have to be realistic. Because everyone understands that to teach doctors, you need doctors. We don’t want to remove too many doctors from the health network,” Prime Minister François Legault explained during the election campaign last fall.
This plan was accompanied by an investment of $400 million to provide accelerated training for nursing assistants and paramedics, as was the case with beneficiary attendants during the pandemic.
Over a period of eight years in power, the Legault government estimates that it will have increased medical admissions by nearly 50%. During the last three-year plan, in 2020, the number of admissions had been increased by 139 over three years.
Listen to Marie Montpetit’s interview with Dr. Sylvain Dion, vice-president of the FMOQ and family doctor at Lac Etchemins via QUB radio :
Faculties in the region
These students will also be able to attend the new regional campuses of the faculties of medicine. McGill University, for example, opened a satellite in Outaouais, while Université Laval now offers courses in Lévis and Rimouski.
In government offices, it is believed that students trained in the regions are more likely to stay there followingwards.
The issue of training doctors is a major challenge, due to the aging of the population. On the one hand, many of them will retire: according to data from Quebec, 23% of them were over 60 in 2020-2021. On the other hand, the aging population will require greater care in the coming years.
But the increase in admissions worries the Quebec Student Medical Federation (FMEQ). In an open letter published during the election campaign, she said she feared that too rapid an increase would harm the quality of internships in particular. In the same way, new positions for resident doctors will also have to be opened up to avoid unnecessary training of doctors who will go practice elsewhere.
The FMEQ also noted that one of the greatest challenges remains attracting future physicians to family medicine, a specialty often shunned.
Number of admissions annually
2022-2023: 969
2023-2024: 1043 (+74)
2024-2025: 1134 (+165)
2025-2026: 1134 (+165)
2026-2027*: 1225 (+256)
*forecasts
Do you have any information to share with us regarding this story?
Write to us at or call us directly at 1 800-63SCOOP.
1689388085
#Increase #number #admissions #future #doctors #years
