The trend towards the privatization of health care is not the result of recent governments, but rather the result of the inefficiency of the public system which, for 50 years, has never been up to the task.
Rather, it is the work of sick and suffering people who despair of finding the resources and care there to cure or relieve them, and who, in addition to paying their taxes to finance the public system, must resolve to pay out of pocket to hope for relief. They are the ones who set the trend.
A system which, at the start in 1970, was intended to be decentralized, agile, focused on the needs of the population. Quickly, it became rigid, bureaucratic with 300,000 employees, central tables for negotiating collective agreements, tens of thousands of pages of regulations, standards, procedures, practices, etc., not to mention the corporate interests of groups participants who only seek to benefit their members.
Our healthcare system is, in effect, a gigantic government monopoly and, as with any monopoly, the needs and preservation of the organization are more important than those of the clients, beneficiaries or patients. It is this situation which is scandalous and revolting.
Isn’t it time, after 50 years of commissions of inquiry and reforms that have not changed the problems of accessibility, care, waiting times, callback lists and overflow of emergencies, to modify the sacrosanct Quebec model?