In Baie-Sainte-Catherine, a municipality of 184 inhabitants located where the Saguenay River flows into the St. Lawrence, everyone has access to a family doctor… provided they travel 150 kilometres. A situation decried for years in this aging village where nearly half of the residents are over 65 years old.
“We feel abandoned,” sighs Mayor Donald Kenny on the phone. For five years, he has been working to attract a doctor to the eastern end of Charlevoix, a region that is becoming depopulated and where access to health care is, like in many other parts of Quebec, at the end of a long road.
“I am 77 years old, underlines the mayor. Me being the first, I have to go to La Malbaie to see my doctor: it’s a journey of at least an hour and a half round trip. »
In Baie-Sainte-Catherine, 80 people are over 65, a number that includes 20 octogenarians, according to data from the most recent Statistics Canada census. Most don’t have a car or the ability to drive, says Donald Kenny. “These elderly people no longer dare to leave their homes,” he adds, “because at the slightest ailment, it’s 911 and the ambulance. »
He also sees the ambulance pass “two to three times a week in the village”, notes the elected official. “Seniors, we know what it is: they are more likely to have anxiety attacks. If we had a doctor or a super nurse who came to visit them twice a month, it would calm their anxiety and it would save the state money. »
The lack of local doctors has a series of consequences for the region. Céline Huot, a former nurse now resident of Baie-Sainte-Catherine, has seen the condition of patients deteriorate due to lack of care or lack of early diagnosis. She also notes the incongruities of the overwhelmed health system. “We may have a family doctor, but if he is not available, we are not more advanced,” she laments. Appointments are filling up so quickly, she notes, that many Baie-Catherini residents are resolving to clog the emergency room in La Malbaie to get access to a doctor.
To the mayor’s knowledge, the situation has not led to disastrous consequences. However, if a heart attack should strike down a citizen of the village, the worst could occur, according to Donald Kenny. “I’m no prophet, but by the time the ambulance comes from Clermont or La Malbaie… It too has 150 km to cover to get us to the emergency room! »
The municipality certainly has a defibrillator “kept in a specific place” and some residents have received training to use it correctly, adds the mayor. “On the other hand, he says, we are not doctors either. We won’t do miracles with that. »
The great seduction
The death of D.r Éric Gagné, who arrived in 2020 after three years of fighting cancer, left the entire region without a local doctor. His clinic, established thirty years ago in Saint-Siméon, served one or two days a month to the population of Baie-Sainte-Catherine and Sagard, an area where approximately 1,000 inhabitants live together. .
Since the departure of the Dr Won, the local elected officials went out of their way to bring a doctor back to their region, going so far as to collect a large sum, as part of a fundraising campaign, to buy the Saint-Siméon clinic left vacant and offer it to a practitioner wanting to settle in the area. “Just at home, we raised $14,000,” said the mayor of Baie-Sainte-Catherine. As no one showed interest in coming to practice here, we gave the money back to the citizens. »
Baie-Sainte-Catherine keeps the small room of its unoccupied CLSC which, for the moment, only receives blood tests once a month. “I know that one day a doctor will come to the area. When, on the other hand, it’s another story,” says Mayor Kenny without harboring any illusions.
“It would be nice to meet tomorrow morning the minister [de la Santé] Christian Dubé and ask him for a doctor, I know very well that it wouldn’t change anything. There is a lack of people everywhere and it is not the mayor of a small municipality of 184 inhabitants who can change anything about that. Imagine what the civil servants say to each other, on the other end of the line, when they hang up after talking to me,” he quips.
The local MP, Kariane Bourassa, says she is sensitive to the situation of Baie-Catherinois. She is due to meet Mayor Donald Kenny on January 25 to discuss this issue.
An interested doctor
However, the situation could improve in 2023. The mayor of Saint-Siméon, Sylvain Tremblay, talks with a doctor from Saguenay, “accustomed to rural life” and who, after having worked in favelas Brazilians, expressed interest in settling in the village.
The municipality is ready to roll out the red carpet to attract him. “If she needs housing and has trouble finding it, we’ll roll up our sleeves to get it for her. If she needs a new clinic, the owner of the pharmacy even says she is ready to build it,” explains Mayor Tremblay.
The mayor remains cautious, however, saying he fears the “administrative poutine” and its pitfalls. “I’m very careful, I’m taking small steps,” notes Sylvain Tremblay. On the other hand, I am hopeful that in 2023, we could see that. We have a local, a person interested in coming this year and a population that has needs. »
To ensure that all the bureaucratic obstacles likely to hinder the arrival of the doctor in Saint-Siméon are cleared, the mayor intends to gather around the same table, from January, all the actors concerned. “I had thrown in the towel and lost hope of getting a doctor here,” he said. This time, however, I feel like it could be the right one. »
However, he has a caveat: villages like his, which are losing their services one by one and which have to survive with limited means and a lot of ingenuity, should not have to play the big game of seduction to ensure care for their population. “It’s not up to the municipalities to do that,” he concludes.