Despite what Christian Dubé says publicly, the Caquist government is well aware that its electoral commitments in health no longer have any chance of materializing before the end of the mandate. He therefore seeks to extract as many improvements as possible through bluffs, sacrificing a dose of self-esteem and credibility.
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Since the start of the Caquist mandate, there have been no more setbacks in the health sector.
There was the promise to recover a billion dollars from the pockets of medical specialists, which gradually deflated after the election.
Last June, the Auditor General revealed that a meager six million dollars had been saved so far, as part of the agreement concluded between Christian Dubé and the Federation of medical specialists. The goal was to recover $ 450 million.
It should be remembered that following the agreement, the then president, Diane Francoeur, trumpeted: “This is the best day of my mandate. “
The commitment to reduce the wait time to 90 minutes to see a doctor in the emergency room seemed unrealistic from the start, but with the pandemic, we cannot blame the government for sifting through it.
A Quebecer, a doctor
The Caquists had also promised that every Quebecer would have a family doctor.
François Legault and his minister brandished the threat of a law to force general practitioners to take more patients, by reducing the specter of financial penalties for the less “productive”.
But now they retreat, preferring to give the negotiation a new chance. In the law tabled, the government is relying on a regionalised IT platform to ask doctors to make more appointments available, even outside of normal office hours.
But there is no longer a risk of sanctions for the doctors themselves, only with regard to the FMGs who do not respect the objectives to be set later. We really have to have faith to hope that these changes in the management method will result in a sharp drop in the number of Quebecers who are orphaned by doctors.
Officially, there are more than 800,000 on a waiting list, but Christian Dubé admits that, in fact, there are probably 1.5 million in total.
Poker
The minister played a game of poker after stepping back twice in ultimatums aimed at compulsory vaccination of health workers.
In the caquist dispensaries, it is judged that the game was worth the candle. “Omni doctors have a signed agreement, so the strategy of the good cop / bad cop, so that they move, we had no choice. Without these threats, it was very difficult to move forward, ”summarizes a source well aware of the discussions.
As with the compulsory vaccination ultimatum which at least had the merit of increasing the inoculation of workers, the Legault government believes that the warning shot for doctors will ultimately make it possible to make gains, even if he cannot keep his election promise.
The staff also seems to base hopes on the departure of the president of the Federation of general practitioners, Louis Godin, after 14 years in office, on December 11.
Will discussions be easier with a new interlocutor?
In any case, another Caquist promise, that of reviewing the mode of remuneration of general practitioners, is no longer on the radar.
And by dint of showing his muscles before repackaging them, the Minister of Health risks passing for a Popeye on the decline who frightens no one.
In the eyes of François Legault, only the result counts. He seeks at all costs to record gains, however small they may be.
Quebecers will understand that its health commitments could not be achieved in the midst of a pandemic.
It will be up to them to judge if he has obtained enough in an exceptional context.