We can understand that the Minister of Health of Quebec, Christian Dubé, wants to change the increasingly bad perception that the population has of the health system, but it is frankly indecent to present the services they receive as a gift. .
“What would not be the pleasure and the happiness of a citizen to say: I have just received a nice gift of 18,000 piastres because I had my two hips changed and it cost me nothing”, a- he declared, to support his plan to send symbolic invoices to those who have benefited from care.
A moment ! As its name suggests, the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) is an insurance plan, which is financed entirely by taxpayers’ taxes. The benefits they derive from it are not a gift for which they should be grateful, but simply their due. They even have every reason to wonder if they are getting their money’s worth.
In the same way, someone who pays a premium every year to insure his house or his car and who receives compensation in the event of a claim or accident does not consider that he is being done a favour.
Admittedly, the creation of the RAMQ in the early 1970s represented tremendous progress which enabled those who did not have the means to obtain care which they had previously had to deprive themselves of, but that does not constitute a gift than free education or subsidies for daycare services.
Health is an area where the recycling of old ideas is particularly flourishing. From one government to another, we are rediscovering — without necessarily applying them — the same recipes drawn from reports that have been forgotten on the shelves for years, even decades.
This is the case with symbolic invoices, which Marc-Yvan Côté, then a minister in Robert Bourassa’s government, proposed in a report entitled Citizen-centred reformdated December 7, 1990. Each Quebecer would receive an annual report detailing the cost of the care received in private practices and network establishments.
“Citizens must be made aware of the costs of the health and social services of all kinds that they receive. This awareness aims to correct in practice the illusion of gratuity and, at the same time, to raise awareness of the value of the services received,” the document explained.
We did not explicitly suggest a certain restraint in the use of health services, but it was the time when we were discussing the possibility of imposing a co-payment, which the Canada Health Act had prohibited, we again to de-insure certain treatments.
One could say that this restraint is imposed de facto today by the interminable wait in the emergency room or the difficulty of having access to a doctor, access which becomes almost a feat, to the point where many become discouraged and prefer to endure their wrong.
On the last day before the adjournment of the work of the National Assembly for the holiday period, Christian Dubé had to admit the inability of the network to absorb the list of 160,000 people awaiting an intervention. In his eyes, given the pandemic, simply not having it lengthened is already a great success.
The Liberal MP for Pontiac, André Fortin, reminded him that last April, he had promised to eliminate in one year the list of people with cancer who have been waiting for more than two months. Instead it went from 386 to 606. Mr. Dubé had to admit that he had no solution.
Despite the Minister’s good intentions, not a day goes by without a new incongruity further tarnishing the network’s image. When we come to the point of suspending nurses because they ate a toast or a piece of pizza intended for the beneficiaries…
The distress of the network was perfectly illustrated by the cry from the heart of this nurse mother of a single-parent family to whom The duty echoed Friday. Passionate about her work in the emergency room, Isabelle Tousignant is nevertheless thinking of leaving it after being forced to work 22 overtime hours in the same week. She is tired of always having to entrust her 9-year-old son to her neighbour.
“Mr. Dubé asks for a little patience, says that we have an action plan. I’ve been in the emergency room for seven years, we’ve been asked for a little patience for seven years. At some point, it will do! »
Of course, Mr. Dubé is not responsible for a staff shortage which predates his arrival and which does not only affect Quebec. No one doubts that he is doing everything possible to make things better. He can always ask us to be understanding, but still not to say thank you for such poor service!