Exhausted by the saturation of the health network, a doctor who invited Éric Duhaime to spend a day with him at the hospital calls for solidarity with political parties.
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“It’s not about whether we agree or disagree. [avec les mesures sanitaires]. Everyone is fed up with sanitary measures. Everyone wants to get out of there. It’s obvious”, immediately indicates Dr Gilles Goulet, cardiologist at the University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM).
Last week, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, asked Prime Minister François Legault to put an end to all the health measures in force in Quebec, judging that they had not prevented the current crisis.
“While everyone is hanging by a thread, now Mr. Duhaime comes out publicly and says ‘sanitary measures are enough’. This outing made us feel like completely lonely people. We feel alone”, laments Dr Goulet.
Mr. Duhaime, who claims to “understand his cry from the heart” refused the invitation of Dr.r Goulet on the pretext that he could not “legally [le] currently being followed in a Quebec hospital”.
Nevertheless, the cardiologist finds it distressing that party leaders are playing politics on the failures of the health network at a time when the hospitals of the province are full to bursting.
“That is the purpose of the open letter I wrote to Mr. Duhaime, but I could have written the same letter to Mr.me England. Where is Mme Anglade to support health people? Where is Mr. St-Pierre-Plamondon to help us support the health network? Where is Mr. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois? Radio silence from these three other parties,” he criticizes.
“The message I want to bring today is that we are tired, you like us. Here, we feel alone and we need, for the last kilometers that we have left in the marathon, for the last days, weeks that we have left to do in this 5th wave, we need to feel that everyone is saying the same thing and going in the same direction,” he adds.
If he considers that there must of course be discussions on the needs to improve the health network, Dr Goulet thinks that now is not the time to do so.
“When the house is on fire, it does not help to wonder if we had smoke detectors or if we had sprinklers in the house. The house is burning! What are we doing now to try to save this institution as best we can? Later, when it’s over, we can sit there, ”he said.