Bill 15 bringing major reforms to the health system was adopted under a gag order early Saturday morning, after 15 hours of discussions.
• Read also: Quebec Health Agency: Dubé imposes gag order to adopt his reform
The deputies debated all night the bill which will notably allow the creation of the new Santé Québec agency.
TVA News
The government’s efforts will therefore be devoted, in the coming months, to building the foundations of the new national agency Santé Québec, which will be responsible for most of the management of the health system. First, the search and hiring of numerous high-ranking officials for the management of this new management body will be carried out.
“During this time, we are solving absolutely nothing,” said the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay, deploring that these efforts are not being put into resolving the current problems of the health system.
The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, affirmed, for his part, that “it is a beautiful day, because it is day one of the transition”.
Only around ten articles among the few hundred remaining were able to be addressed in the deliberations.
“Nearly a third of the articles” would not have been studied at all, reported the PQ MP for Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Joël Arseneau, at a press briefing Saturday morning.
The opposition deputies each took turns reproaching, at a press briefing, the inability of Minister Dubé to specify the broad outlines of his own bill. “It is not normal that a minister, who tells us that his bill is so important that it must be adopted by gag order, is not capable of answering questions,” lamented the co-sponsor. words of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, upon leaving the National Assembly.
A law that goes badly in the network itself
Already on Friday, even before the bill was adopted, the various unions in the health network had mentioned their disagreement with the bill.
“We are aware that solutions must be put in place to improve the organization of work, but a reform can never succeed without the support and mobilization of health personnel,” says Isabelle Duhaime, president of the Quebec Health Federation.
While health professionals said they still suffered from the repercussions of the Barrette reform, they believe that the establishment of the Santé Québec agency would continue to concentrate powers in one place.
“Even today, I find it difficult to explain such an orientation to myself when past experiences should push us in the diametrically opposite direction. The Barrette reform is known today as a resounding failure, largely because the concentration of powers paved the way for a cumbersome and inefficient central bureaucracy, which slowed down decisions on the ground significantly and therefore undermined the effectiveness of the care and services offered,” underlined, for his part, Robert Comeau, president of the Alliance of Professional and Technical Personnel in Health and Social Services.
In addition, trade union organizations also deplored the imposition of a gag order.
“Suspending democratic rules when there are more than 500 articles remaining to be studied seems hasty to us. Especially since the work in the parliamentary committee was done collegially and made it possible to concretely improve the bill,” said Magali Picard, president of the Quebec Federation of Workers, to which various unions in the network are associated. of health.