More than 40% of doctors registered for the mandatory examination of the Quebec Office of the French language sank it last year, more than the provincial average.
Only 58% of candidates passed the French exam last year, or 53 doctors out of 91. This is below the average of 63% for all professional orders combined.
Only a minority of physicians must pass this exam in order to become a member of the College of Physicians of Quebec (CMQ), because language skills are immediately recognized if they have:
- Studied at least three years in French in high school or during post-secondary studies (regardless of the country);
- Passed the French mother tongue exam in Secondary 4 or 5;
- Obtained a secondary school certificate in Quebec after 1985-1986 (even if it is an English language school).
Lots of exemptions
Thus, foreign doctors who studied in French in another country or Quebecers who did their secondary studies here, in English, are exempt, for example.
By email, the OQLF also specifies that “it is the professional orders that determine whether their candidates must take the exam”.
The OQLF refused to send a copy of its examination to the Log. However, the website details that it takes place in four parts: reading, group discussion, writing a 150-word text and meeting with the person in charge of the exam.
Repeats to infinity
Those who fail the exam can take it again “as many times as necessary”, underlines the OQLF, which specifies that 77% of the certificates issued were after a first attempt.
The temporary permit of workers who must pass the exam can be renewed three times, for a maximum period of four years.
Currently, only 62 physicians hold temporary licenses out of 23,000 College members. They therefore represent a minority of doctors waiting to pass the exam and do not alone explain the prevalence of English in several hospitals.
Moreover, the CMQ replies that the knowledge of the language of medical students is checked by the universities, which must require a mastery of French before they can enter a clinical setting.
By email, McGill University indicates that its Montreal cohorts must reach an intermediate level of French and that 95% of its medical students are residents of Quebec.
Why have so many patients lifted at the Log that they had come up against non-French speaking McGill residents? The University refused our request for an interview on this subject.
Passing an exam is ‘insufficient’
Courtesy Photo
Maxime Laporte
Passing an exam remains insufficient to ensure health care in French in Quebec, denounce organizations.
“It is not enough to pass a test, French must be imposed institutionally […]. To bring a language to life in concrete reality, it is not enough to know it or to be able to speak it theoretically, it must be the normal working language, ”argues the president of Mouvement Québec français, Maxime Laporte.
Thus, the examinations of the Office québécois de langue française to obtain a license to practice or the minimum requirements imposed by McGill University for a diploma do not give anything if the professionals do not practice thereafter, he believes.
According to Mr. Laporte, the bilingualism of institutions such as the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) or the Integrated University Health and Social Services Center (CIUSSS) of the West Island of Montreal does not than to anglicization.
Anglicize the French
“It anglicizes allophones and francophones,” he laments. Even if it is our own taxes that finance these institutions.”
“We really need to strengthen francization in the workplace,” added Marie Anne Alepin, of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal.
The president of Impératif français, Jean-Paul Perreault, insists that patients should not have to ask to be treated in French. This responsibility lies with professionals and their employers.
“The patient needs the service; what matters to him is to obtain it”, he insists, specifying that the patients already present themselves at the hospital in a state of vulnerability. Nevertheless, care in a language that we do not master, it becomes a security issue, according to him.
“Why don’t the professional orders express themselves more with their members?” he asks, to ensure that French is the language of work.
“Their raison d’être is to protect the public,” continues Mr. Laporte in turn.
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