(Lac-Beauport) Minister Christian Dubé is taking “the world for granted” by making them believe that the Santé Québec agency – a new entity that will take care of the department’s operations – will come to solve the problems of the health network, denounces MP André Fortin. According to him, Mr. Dubé is trying to “unload” his ministerial responsibility.
The Liberal MP and health critic, André Fortin, went full throttle against Minister Christian Dubé’s proposal. “I can’t believe that the health solution right now is to put one more box in the organization chart of the Ministry of Health,” said the MP for Pontiac, on the sidelines of his party’s pre-sessional caucus. .
André Fortin also accuses Minister Dubé of “using” the death of Andrée Simard, the widow of former Prime Minister Robert Bourassa, to promote his aims. “To say that if there had been a CEO of the Health Quebec agency, we would have avoided a situation like this, I find that incredibly cynical. It’s taking the world for suitcases, ”he cursed.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
André Fortin
In interview at To have toChristian Dubé supported the creation of this new entity that will prevent tragedies like that of Mme Simard, who was deprived of palliative care for the three days preceding his death, by making the “network more efficient and more human”.
The Minister of Health must present a bill this winter to create the Health Quebec agency. It is an electoral commitment which plans to split the imposing Ministry of Health and Social Services in two. Santé Québec would oversee the entire operational component of the MSSS. The big bosses of the CISSS and CIUSSS would report to this entity, while a CEO would be appointed.
A “civil servant solution”
“This solution relieves the minister of his responsibility. It’s not something that will depoliticize the health network, it’s something that will relieve the Minister of responsibility,” continued Mr. Fortin. “He is putting a chaperone over the heads of the CEOs of the CISSSs and the CIUSSSs, and putting a shield around himself,” he added, speaking of a “civil servant solution “.
At the beginning of the year, Minister Dubé affirmed that he was not in position “to extinguish fires”, but to put in place measures which will have “structuring effects” in the network. The following week, he had no choice but to get involved in the emergency room crisis at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont. “It’s part of his job,” André Fortin reminded him.
The interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Marc Tanguay, was hardly more impressed by Minister Dubé’s solution: “I think it’s a structure that once again takes the minister away from decisions on the ground,” he argued when he arrived in caucus.
“I am thinking of the person, the Child Jesus, in the emergency room, who has been sitting on a stretcher for several hours and who must be saying to himself: ‘that’s great, what great news, there is going to be a structure additional,” quipped Mr. Tanguay, recalling that the minister must be “accountable” for what happens in the network.
At To have toChristian Dubé affirmed that he would remain accountable, but that he “structured differently”.