Quebec’s health minister came under fire for the third day in a row during question period on Thursday, this time over a report in the French-language newspaper La Presse which found that MRI and CT scan machines are widely underused in hospitals, despite long waiting lists.
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“Everyone knows someone in Quebec who’s been told, ‘You can have a scan, but the wait time is six months to a year.’ By contrast, if you go to a private clinic, you can have one next week,” Parti Quebecois (PQ) health critic Diane Lamarre said during question period. “The minister promised MRIs would be open 16 hours a day where necessary. That’s not what’s happening.”
Lamarre accused Health Minister Gaetan Barrette of purposely allowing this problem to persist in the public system in order to benefit the private system.
The health minister denied that. He said he invested close to $7 million last year in order to operate the machines for 16 hours a day, but he acknowledged that personnel must be available as well in order to operate the machines.
“The message I’m still sending to the network is: ‘You have machines, hire people, and make those machines run 16 hours a day when personnel is available. The money’s there,'” Barrette said.
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Barrette said in the last year, hospitals have conducted 50,000 more CT scans and over 40,000 more MRIs. He qualified his investment as a “success.”
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This latest problem in Quebec’s health-care system comes one day after the province’s optometrists announced they were withdrawing from the public health-care system, the RAMQ, and only two days after the health minister was attacked for not dealing with a nursing labour shortage that was causing hospital nurses to work excessive amounts of overtime.
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Barrette said it is “obvious” what is happening: “In an election year, everybody is coming up and asking for this and that. And that’s the thing that I think the population is expecting. Obviously, I’m not only expecting it, but I’m living it,” Barrette said.
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