Health Minister Christian Dubé blames the former Liberal government for the net loss of 49 family doctors in 2022-2023. He attributes this negative assessment to the Liberals’ decision to “limit” the number of admissions to medicine before 2018. According to him, there are too few new doctors trained to compensate for retirements. The opposition believes that the government is not doing enough to counter the shortage of general practitioners.
“We must remember that we are perhaps paying today for the decisions that the Liberal government took in 2016, 2017 and 2018,” said Christian Dubé, in a press scrum at the National Assembly. Remember that in those years, we limited the number of doctors who were trained. » The minister specified that 400 family doctors began their practice in 2022-2023. The minister specified that 400 family doctors started their practice in 2022-2023 and that 450 retired. According to the Minister of Health, departures to private clinics have little influence.
To reverse the trend in the “short term”, Christian Dubé wants to facilitate the gradual retirement of doctors. “There are a lot of doctors who would like to be able to retire on a basis of two days a week, three days a week, and that, at the moment, is not allowed,” he explained. Discussions are underway on this subject with the College of Physicians of Quebec, he added.
Christian Dubé indicates that more new general practitioners will come as reinforcements in five years. The number of medical admissions has been increased in recent years to reach 1043 students in 2023-2024 and 1225 in 2026-2027.
Opposition reactions
Questioned on this subject at a press briefing at the National Assembly, the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay, said he considered the situation “very worrying”. He recalled that the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) has been in power since 2018. “If the government were resolutely focused on care, it would develop more GMFs, ensure that there are a sufficient number of doctors who practice family medicine,” he said.
The Parti Québécois health spokesperson, Joël Arseneau, believes that family medicine must be promoted to counter the shortage and improve access to care. “Currently, we are in the process of shaking up the structures at Santé Québec,” he said at a press briefing at the National Assembly. During this time, doctors leave to go to the private sector or to go to another province or to retire. So here, we can question the government’s priorities: mix up structures or resolve access problems. »
For his part, Quebec Solidaire MP Sol Zanetti believes that the CAQ is not doing enough to resolve the problem of the lack of family doctors. “We haven’t seen the beginning of a solution,” he said. What did they really do to stop this situation? I don’t see it. »