Health Minister Christian Dubé has unveiled Quebec’s new plan to reform the province’s health system and make it more efficient.
Bill 15 has more than 1,200 articles and will change no fewer than 35 laws.
“It’s not normal that we have 800,000 people waiting for an appointment, that doesn’t make sense,” Dubé said at a press conference in Quebec City.
Perhaps the bill’s flagship initiative is the creation of a new body called Santé Québec. No more will you need to struggle through those pesky CIUSSS and CISSS acronyms.
Each of those agencies will be replaced with a local division of Santé Québec.
The minister says under the new agency, Quebec’s 350,000 health workers will all have the same employer. He believes this will make it easier to move people around to where the needs are the greatest, saying professionals will be able to change institutions without losing seniority.
The manager of each Santé Québec division will be responsible for all the facilities in their area, and each institution will have a director on site.
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Citing the finger-pointing over the Herron crisis during the pandemic, Dubé said he feels accountability has been lacking.
“We just want to have a local manager responsible for each establishment, for each installation,” he explained.
Dubé says the bill represents a change in philosophy that will focus more on patients. It comes with a new “national complaints commissioner” to assure patient complaints make it all the way up the hierarchy, and promises to make the health system an attractive place to work.
“We would like them to be proud to work,” Dubé said of health professionals, explaining he felt in recent years pride in the health network had dissipated.
Not everyone is enthused about the minister’s proposal.
Medical specialists , who will be asked to do more work outside their expertise in the new system, called the health ministry “confrontational” in a statement.
Dubé recognized there is work ahead to come to an agreement with the specialists that will work for both sides.
“The minister has to prove to everybody and demonstrate to everybody how patient care will be improved by this, because at first glance, it’s not visible to us,” said Liberal health critic André Fortin.
Though Dubé says Santé Québec will give more power to people on the ground, critics say the new agency sounds like more centralization. Whoever is chosen to lead it will be responsible for the management of the health system.
“Everything should not be decided at the headquarters, in Quebec City,” said CSN president Caroline Senneville.
There are concerns the government will just be able to blame that agency for problems.
“It is very much a shield for the the health minister to protect himself against his own ministerial responsibility,” said Fortin.
There’s no intention to rush Bill 15 through. There will be several months of debate, discussion and consultation before it’s adopted, and much more time until it’s implemented.
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