First, without irony or sarcasm, it must be said: Horacio Arruda was not unworthy. He was the man for the job at the start of the pandemic when it was necessary to convince Quebecers to encabaner.
March 2020, everything was new, everything was dizzying. The “distancing”, the “confinement”, the “droplets”, the “corona…” what?
The bonhomie and the naturalness of the national director of public health served the necessary pedagogy that had to be done with Quebecers in these frantic hours of spring 2020. We all remember the good Dr Arruda who, with his theatrical gestures, flattened the “curve” of infections in the 1 pm press briefings …
Horacio Arruda was therefore the man for the job …
Until he isn’t.
And last December 30, on the eve of the start of the third year of the pandemic, Sarah Molkhou, of Cogeco News, asked the question in the form of a coup de grace to François Legault (1) during the press briefing of the health trio : “The work of Dr Arruda is increasingly called into question by analysts who criticize him in particular for being behind in science: is he still the right person to lead Quebec’s public health? ”
PM’s response: “Yes. ”
It was the beginning of the end, the beginning of the “no”, basically.
Large sections of scientific Quebec doubted the National Director of Public Health (DNSP), and for a long time. Because, yes, loads of epidemiologists, microbiologists, virologists and infectious diseases have been scratching their heads for months listening to Horacio Arruda. Not to mention the doubts in the regional public health directorates: these doubts were not expressed publicly, because the DNSP Arruda was the boss of the regional directorates …
Journalist André Noël summarized the numerous missteps (2) of the DNSP. December was the month when doubts about Horacio Arruda became hard to ignore. Analyst Patrick Déry was one of the first to demand his departure (3). Then, Monday morning, the editorial of Press (4) was very hard for the DNSP, and Christian Dubé, at Paul Arcand (5), did not exactly give a resounding vote of confidence to Dr Arruda …
The pressure had become too great for the DNSP to remain in office. And Monday night, he resigned.
Too often what the D saidr Arruda in public was out of step with those who made a profession of studying epidemiology, microbiology, virology and infectious diseases. As long as we built the famous COVID-19 plane in flight, it could pass. But the excuse of changing science still had a wide back, in front of some dumplings of the Dr Arruda. In the end, after two years of the pandemic, it was no longer justifiable.
The Dr Arruda therefore resigned. Now, beyond the human being, there are the structures … The national director of public health is also deputy minister. A deputy minister is not programmed to contradict politics. However, in a pandemic, science and politics will not necessarily have the same views.
If Horacio Arruda is replaced by another person just as subservient to politics, we will continue to have Public Health which is, in fact, Political Health.
Since the start of the pandemic, politicians have said over and over again that “we are following Public Health recommendations”, while we do not really know what Public Health has actually recommended …
Or not.
This lack of transparency is a problem. We do not know where the political concerns begin and where the political imperatives end, when the government speaks. The departure of the Dr Arruda gives the opportunity to correct this transparency problem. It will take transparency to maintain the confidence of Quebecers in good faith.
Because at present, the Public Health directly salaried by the State – Ministry of Health, National Institute of Public Health and National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services – does not seem to dare to contradict the policy.
You have to go to hospitals and universities – to Public Health, which does not report directly to the ministry – to find independent points of view, which are often the opposite of what politicians say.
There is a lot of expertise in the regional public health directorates, which often feel as far from Quebec as the Earth, from Jupiter: in Montreal, the director of public health, Mylène Drouin, has often distinguished herself (6) . She has the unconditional respect of her peers. The DD Drouin would detonate in the boys club from the PM’s bunker… Just like the DD Joanne Liu, former president of Médecins sans frontières, who knows a little about epidemic management in the field.
These people, those who are not from the “official” public health of the state employees of the INSPQ-INESSS-Ministry of Health, they must have the ear of François Legault.
But if the PM takes advantage of Horacio Arruda’s resignation to install another person who will serve as his scientific backing in the same structure of bureaucrats subservient to politics, we risk continuing to wonder if there is a pilot in the COVID-19 plane (7).