Posted at 1:00 p.m.
First, we want to clarify that family physicians simply refuse to serve as scapegoats for systemic failures in the health network that go far beyond their responsibilities and their will. After two years of a pandemic that required unprecedented efforts from family doctors because of their responsibilities in terms of patient care and follow-up, combined with considerable work in institutions (emergencies, hospitalization, COVID-19 clinics , CHSLD and long-term care, obstetrics, rehabilitation, intensive care, etc.), the gratuitous denigration and legislative intimidation of which they are victims have no reason to exist and must stop.
Family physicians are aware of the difficulties in accessing care. They also suffer from it and they find the status quo unacceptable. However, in the field, we have to deal with inescapable facts: there is a shortage of approximately 1,000 family physicians in Quebec, more than 400 family medicine residency positions have remained vacant since 2013 in the province’s faculties of medicine, the family medicine have been relieved of many resources since the start of the pandemic and family physicians must still devote nearly 40% of their practice to hospital tasks, a unique feature in Quebec.
Family physicians are and want to be part of the solution to improve access to primary care, but they cannot be the only solution in the current context. New ways of doing things must emerge.
This is why the Federation has endorsed several innovative proposals over the past few months, in particular by ensuring that its members strongly support an eventual simplified appointment scheduling system, but above all by advocating the implementation of first-line access counters (GAP) across Quebec. These proposals were also taken up by many players in the health network who testified in the parliamentary committee last week.
The deployment of GAP, among others, in each region, would allow other healthcare professionals (nurses, psychologists, social workers, physiotherapists, pharmacists, etc.) to be the gateway to the healthcare system while reducing the overload of family physicians.
The future is here: the right professional for the right patient at the right time. If we added to the functional deployment of the GAP group care as we have been offering for months, rather than individual and resting on the shoulders of the family doctor alone, as well as a reduction in the administrative burden for doctors, then we would really have winning conditions to improve access.
Unfortunately, to date, the government, beyond rhetoric, refuses to engage in these promising avenues and to offer guarantees in this regard. Moreover, Bill 11 makes no reference to these innovative solutions and does not contain any structuring measure that will allow better access to front-line care.
This bill is not about access, but rather about bureaucratic control of the medical profession. So trying to associate Bill 11 with a “refoundation” of the health care system is purely political marketing. Instead, let’s move forward with real solutions to improve access to front-line care, developed and implemented in consultation with health professionals. There it is, our message! The government must choose this path and, if it does, family doctors will be there. Quebecers deserve such consultation.