QUEBEC CITY – The health care system is sick and the minister responsible says he has a prescription.
“Family doctors in Quebec need to enroll between one and two new patients a day,” said Minister Gaetan Barrette at a press conference in Quebec City Thursday.
The government signed an agreement with the Quebec Federation of General Practitioners (FMOQ) in December 2015.
In order to meet the targets both sides agreed to, family doctors need to take on 58,000 new patients every month.
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Since signing the agreement, more than 213,000 have found family doctors but Barrette wants to see more than one million more Quebecers by the end of December 2017.
Barrette has said enrollment hasn’t been as fast as he’d like, but believes the target can still be met.
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“The FMOQ itself agreed and engaged itself to put in place measures, including financial measures towards their members, in order, to, let’s say, direct them in the proper direction,” he said.
The target is for 85 percent of Quebecers to have a family doctor by December 2017.
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