As a child, I remember my father’s references to load shedding. He was an engineer at Hydro-Quebec. During major winter storms in the 1970s (the likes of which are no longer known), there were major power outages. And my father had to, with his colleagues, as he explained to me at the time, carry out load shedding to preserve the integrity of the electrical network by removing service from some, for more or less prolonged periods.
Posted yesterday at 10:00 a.m.
My dad’s vocabulary has been ringing in my head this week. Network insecurity. Reduction of services. It seems to me that the patients are, in this case, Hydro-Québec subscribers hoping not to have to suffer a loss of supply because of the fragility of the health network. But there is a significant variant. In power shedding, there is an attempt to maintain minimal service to the majority, preserving service to sites most likely to experience harmful and deleterious effects from a power outage. Hospitals. CHSLDs. Water pumping stations. Let us remember the management of the ice storm a little over 25 years ago.
At the moment, we see a health network essentially dedicated to the care of patients struggling with COVID-19. It seems that load shedding does not affect them. While all the other categories of patients suffer from potential or proven delays in their investigations and care, the State has converted the health network into a place for the diagnosis of COVID-19 and hospitalization for those who suffer from it. more. More than 3000 beds, about half of the beds in Quebec and human resources. Not to mention the government’s intentions to create resources for the management of the long COVID.
And the others during this time? The electric meter has stopped turning or is idling for several. They must be quickly reconnected to the network, providing all the energy to allow them to benefit from care. Raise the voltage to take precedence over all attention deficits for 24 months.
Not that patients with COVID-19 should have been left out, but the demonstration is good as to the fact that Quebec manages according to the emergence of crises and benefits little from coherent health care planning. . For example, British Columbia has had a cancer agency since 1938! Not so in Quebec. This province also has data since 1969 on each patient who has had cancer, on the treatments given and on the effects of this treatment on the survival of cancer patients! To date, Quebec is not even able to adequately list the cases of cancer on its territory, their stage, the treatments that are given. Imagine the lack of consequent ability to adapt when we ignore the real state of the situation of cancer patients in Quebec, especially when we are reducing care and when we must also plan for a resumption of care when the network will be less fragile.
Because we also have to say it: the network will not be solid after COVID-19.
The foundations are of three kinds and two of them have been precarious for years, long before COVID-19. The first foundation is the competence of network professionals. I don’t think there is reason to fear in this regard.
Our doctors and other professionals are well trained according to provincial, Canadian and international standards, and many have skills that are underestimated and underused by the Quebec network. The second is technical ability. Quebec medical equipment is probably insufficient, but is technologically sufficiently up-to-date to allow interventions in line with recent literature. The third foundation is the overall direction of the network. Although many managers and leaders at all levels are competent, the overall management of health is deficient, too often political. And this while the specific data attributable to the Quebec population are lacking to decide on the quantities of care, to foresee the necessary innovation, to qualify the specificities that should lead us to transform our care offer.
COVID-19 has unfortunately shown us that we have done less well than elsewhere in Canada. More deaths per capita. More hospitalizations overall. More cases. This should lead us to determine why we are doing less well rather than looking for flat excuses.
When Hydro-Québec performs load shedding, it knows how many subscribers are affected and can estimate the period needed to restore access to electricity, as well as the quantity of energy to be produced to meet demand. I do not feel that in the current load shedding announcements, the government and the Department of Health and Human Services are counting the backlogs or suggesting a way to offer them a return to access to sufficient and competent. We can’t wait for a health Hydro-Québec, which many have been calling for for a long time!