(Quebec) After family doctors, the Federation of Medical Specialists of Quebec (FMSQ) expressed “serious reservations” about the sharing of information on health professionals that Bill 11 would allow. A concern shared by the College of Physicians, which demands that Quebec specify its aims.
Posted at 5:30 p.m.
The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, wants to increase access to front-line services, in particular by acquiring legal levers to better understand the occupation of family physicians.
Bill 11 provides for changes to the Health Insurance Act to allow the disclosure of information “necessary for medical resource planning”. Imprecise and far too broad provisions in the eyes of the FMSQ and the College of Physicians who participated in the parliamentary consultation on Tuesday.
“It would give access to the minister, the minister, the establishments to very precise data, personal data of all [ces travailleurs-là] “, argued the president of the FMSQ, Dr.r Vincent Olive.
“This is a debate that goes beyond the purpose of Bill 11, it should be the subject of a commission on access to information. That is what worries us, the disclosure of this information. We have to be sensitive to that, as a society, we have to be careful. We are not in a “big brother” society”, he warned.
The FMSQ, which has specified that it does not want to “interfere” in a bill that targets family doctors, nevertheless demands that Quebec withdraw article 6 from the legislative text. This article allows the Régie de l’assurance- maladie du Québec (RAMQ) to “transmit to the Minister the information necessary for the exercise of his functions”.
The College of Physicians did not say it was against the communication of new data, but asked that Quebec specify its intention. “What data would be required?” How would they be transmitted? What would be their use, ”asked the Director General of the College, Dr.r Andre Luyet.
Minister Dubé did not close the door on “reducing the scope” of section 6 of his bill. Doctors’ associations fear that access to this data could ultimately allow the imposition of coercive measures against doctors.
The Federation of General Practitioners of Quebec (FMOQ), which is calling for the abandonment of Bill 11 (PUT LINK HERE), affirms that the legislative text is “an updated version of the distressing Bill 20” of the former Minister Liberal Gaétan Barrette, which provides for the imposition of penalties on doctors who do not take care of enough patients.
These penalties were ultimately never applied.
François Legault had revealed this fall to have obtained a list identifying the doctors who did not take care of enough patients from RAMQ data and had raised the possibility of transmitting it to health establishments. Minister Dubé then qualified the Prime Minister’s remarks and affirmed that it was an anonymized list.
Parliamentary consultations on Bill 11, one of the elements of the “overhaul” of the health system promised by Minister Dubé, are being held until Thursday.
Concerns among the next generation
The Federation of Resident Physicians of Quebec (FMRQ) argued Tuesday that Bill 11 “is dangerous and unnecessary at best.”
“The challenge of attracting the next generation to the practice of family medicine being already very great, other discriminatory political decisions of this kind would be catastrophic for the recruitment of new family doctors,” writes the FMRQ.
Mr. Dubé also promised to present in his reform a plan for the revaluation of family medicine, as requested in particular by the College of Physicians and the Student Medical Federation of Quebec.
The Quebec Student Medical Federation (FMEQ) has highlighted that “twinning” positions in family medicine are attracting less and less succession. In 2021, 75 positions were not filled, 36 in 2020 and 29 in 2019.
Several stakeholders affirmed that access to first-line services can only rest on the shoulders of family physicians and that this access must be broadened by creating, for example, multidisciplinary teams to take charge of the patient according to his needs. However, the bill does not mention it.
“Interdisciplinarity is not the objective of the bill,” admitted the minister. Christian Dubé has made a commitment to rely on what is known in jargon as the “relevance window” – which makes it possible to direct the patient to the right front-line specialist – in his plan to “refound” the health care system. health.
The CISSS du Bas-Saint-Laurent, which developed this management tool, was also invited by Minister Dubé to participate in the consultations on Thursday.