Posted yesterday at 1:00 p.m.
The pandemic, and particularly the Omicron variant, has pushed a healthcare system that has been known to be fragile for years to its extreme. Faced with a cracked network on all sides, an in-depth examination is essential.
It is clear that we will have to rebuild our system differently. To do this, the obstacles to the accessibility of social and health services, which have long remained in the blind spot and which particularly affect women, will have to be taken seriously by the government of François Legault.
Centralized, privatized, fee-based services, women left behind by the complexity of the network and above all confronted with violence committed by health institutions. All 17 Regional Tables of Women’s Groups and the Network of Regional Tables of Women’s Groups in Quebec today take up the pencil to alert the Prime Minister to these obstacles to the right to health. The government must tackle this so that all women quickly have real access to public, free, universal and quality social and health services throughout the country.
Suffering fueled by institutions
In the 17 regions of Quebec, women’s groups tell us of cases showing that the health network has difficulty taking into account the multidimensional aspect of women. For example, within a mental health resource, a woman reports violence experienced in a marital context. She is blamed and replied that her health problem could be the cause of this violence. She is reduced to one thing: her mental state. The same is true for a woman facing fatphobia within the network. His health issues are most often reduced to his weight. Another woman sees her medical situation trivialized because of a prejudice about black women’s greater tolerance for pain. This leads to delays in its diagnosis.
These very real attitudes cause physical and psychological suffering to the women who experience them and affect their access to quality care. Last year, the death of Joyce Echaquan put a face to this pernicious form of violence committed in or by an institution.
This institutional violence particularly endangers the health and lives of Aboriginal women, many of whom live in situations of social vulnerability, and many other women living at the crossroads of oppression.
The services that are inappropriate or even refused to some women are another example of this violence that results in their exclusion from the health and social services system. Women cannot benefit from services, such as a mammogram, because the equipment is not adapted to their disability. Others are denied access to adoption or assisted reproduction because of their disability background. Moreover, the digital shift in the provision of services or appointments creates an access divide for older women, those with a low level of literacy or those living in areas where the Internet connection is insufficient.
Finally, we are observing institutional violence within the network against its staff, which is made up of a majority of women, and in certain regions against undocumented, refugee, immigrant and racialized workers struggling with untenable working conditions. The historical under-funding of public services has created a network whose functioning is based on the overloading, under-remuneration, non-recognition and even exploitation of their work. These women are paying the price in their health and impoverishment.
Historical gains compromised
These issues experienced by women turning to the health system and by those who work there are part of a continuum of gendered violence. The gains for the right to health and for women’s equality that resulted from the establishment of the public health and social services network are seriously compromised.
A year ago, when the Action Plan for the Health and Well-Being of Women was released, the Legault government declared that their health is at the heart of its concerns. Today, we are asking him if he recognizes the obstacles mentioned and if he is ready to act now in a structural way to eliminate them. It is essential that Quebec have social and health services that are truly accessible to the women who are furthest from them. The right to health is at stake.