The Minister of Health and Social Services, Christine Dubé, presented Thursday her health prevention plan of $ 120 million over 3 years, accompanied by Horacio Arruda, former national director of public health of Quebec.
Mr. Arruda will be the ambassador of the government’s preventive health policy. “Long live prevention! “, he exclaimed, in a press briefing. At his side, Minister Dubé reiterated the importance of adopting healthy lifestyle habits as quickly as possible. By doing this, “we will one day have an impact on the health network,” he assured.
More than twenty government departments and agencies will be involved in this prevention strategy. Nearly 80 non-governmental partners will also take part in the plan. With this investment of $40 million per year, Minister Dubé said he hoped to have a “major effect in reaching out to Quebecers and convincing them to think about these healthy lifestyles”.
Some amounts will be earmarked for awareness campaigns to inform citizens of where sports facilities are located in their communities. Part of the sums will be devoted to “developing the capacities of people from an early age”.
Prevention is “what is currently lacking as a social project,” said Sylvie Bernier, president of the National Tables for Healthy Lifestyles and Olympic medalist.
“Neither a relief nor a disappointment,” says Arruda
Back in the media for the first time since his resignation last January, Mr. Arruda said he was “very very happy” with this new prevention mandate. The fact of no longer occupying his position as national director of public health for Quebec is “neither a relief nor a disappointment”, he said. “I liked doing what I did,” he said.
Asked whether he could have done things differently during the pandemic, Mr. Arruda maintained that it was necessary “to put ourselves in the context that we were at that time”. “I think the decisions that were made […] were those that we thought were the fairest in terms of balance for the Quebec population, he argued. We must not forget the state of fragility in which the health network was. »
For Arruda, the most difficult part of the pandemic has been “the lack of knowledge”, he said. “But we had a vaccine fairly quickly and we had an increase in knowledge fairly quickly,” he said.
“But for sure, managing something without being supported by previous experiences is probably the most difficult element,” added Horacio Arruda.
With The Canadian Press