For two years, the lives of Quebecers have been punctuated by successive waves of COVID-19: restrictions, confinements, sacrifices. But the pandemic has also revealed Quebec’s greatest patient: the health care system.
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“Quebecers have been at the service of their health network, when it must be the health network that should be at the service of Quebecers,” said Minister of Health Christian Dubé.
He wants to make significant changes in the network. First, an updated management plan in hospital settings, which should arrive in time for the fall.
“Quebecers have practiced five times. So we don’t need to practice them! What we need, we, as a ministry, is to ensure that all our teams who must ensure that this plan works, ”explains Christian Dubé.
The minister also wants to get things moving in surgery. The waiting list continues to grow with nearly 160,000 patients waiting. Christian Dubé wants to appeal to the private sector and prioritize those who have been waiting too long.
“What worries me the most are those that are above 12 months. Those who have been waiting for three months, six months, it is not always pleasant. But those who have been waiting for 15 months, that is not acceptable,” he says.
There is a shortage of 50,000 health professionals in the network. Quick access to the front line, an election promise, is struggling to improve.
“Until now, everyone had taken a similar approach, that is to say that it was the doctor who had to be the only door of entry and the only person who might take charge. It is perhaps less important that it is a doctor as such, but that it is a health professional, ”believes the minister.
Christian Dubé is far from being the first politician to attempt a reform. He hopes for everyone’s collaboration to quickly implement the different facets.
“I try to do as much as possible in the short timeframe we have left.
And for the health emergency, maintained relentlessly for two years, he promises to lift it no later than mid-April.
