There are two ways of looking at the hospitalization management prioritization plan presented Tuesday by the Ministry of Health and Social Services: either we say to ourselves that we are really in a time of war, or we say to ourselves that we really take matters into their own hands.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
And that should reassure us.
But I admit that discovering phrases like “redefining the minimum quality of care” or “no longer making every effort to prevent its entry [le virus], but rather deal with the constraints it generates and make the most of it” is enough to shake up the collective imagination.
With this plan intended to have a short lifespan (four to six weeks) and whose measures will be applied if the situation worsens, the government is going further in its speech which says more and more that we must learn to live with this virus.
That said, before going into fear, it must be recognized that this plan contains several positive elements, such as providing some flexibility to the various hospital settings in Quebec. We now know that each region has its realities and its challenges.
The words “agility” and “creativity” were spoken on Tuesday during the technical briefing for this plan.
The other aspect is the increased role of family members and caregivers with sick people. We also aim to attract more volunteer helpers. We count on these people to come to the aid of health personnel.
With booster doses increasing, the effects of Omicron (different to other variants) and the (timid) arrival of drugs, it is believed that we may be able to relax the isolation rules and allow more of movements.
On paper, this plan, written in a vocabulary that no doubt makes hospital administrators salivate, is both bold and solid. But is its implementation feasible?
It will take enormous leadership and foolproof coordination between the hospitals and the CIUSSSs. And that is not won.
The nerve of war is here!
The sentence from Christian Dubé that best summed up Tuesday’s press briefing was undoubtedly: “Yes, the fifth wave is too much! And we have to live with it! »
While repeating that he too is “tired” of the situation, he adopted the tone of someone who wants us to pull ourselves together.
For his “good news of the day” segment, he had to scratch the bottoms of the drawers. A few thousand healthcare workers have returned to work. We are talking about a handful, but the news is still encouraging.
But the question that has remained unanswered concerns the arrival of Paxlovid, this Pfizer treatment which has just been approved by Health Canada and whose cost is estimated at a few hundred dollars per person.
It will be offered as a priority to the most vulnerable patients, i.e. immunosuppressed adults, regardless of their vaccination status, people aged over 80 who are not fully vaccinated and, finally, people of over the age of 60 residing in long-term care facilities, in rural or indigenous communities and who are not fully immunized.
Added to these groups are people who, for various reasons, have not yet been vaccinated. We find in there the famous antivax, those who stubbornly refuse to take this step for two years.
We feel that our leaders are walking on eggshells when it comes time to say how we will make the choices. With an initial distribution of 6,300 treatments for Quebec in January, difficult choices will have to be made. Remember that 600,000 Quebecers were affected by COVID-19 last month.
We talk a lot about the race for screening tests. Now imagine the one at Paxlovid.
In a column published after the holidays, I expressed some excitement about the growing number of people getting their first dose.
Today, I direct my enthusiasm towards another thought: the one that we must learn to deal with this core of “irreducible Gauls”, as the DD Marie-Pascale Pomey, from the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal, in an interview with my colleague Henri Ouellette-Vézina, Tuesday.
According to her, coercive or punitive measures risk antagonizing them even more. “Their positioning is identity and very strongly anchored in them,” she said. I completely agree with her.
An example of these “blocked” people appeared earlier this week in the international media.
Hana Horka, the singer of a Czech folk band, died on Sunday after deliberately contracting the virus.
The 57-year-old woman, whose style is similar to singers Enya or Sarah McLachlan, preferred to contract COVID-19, rather than get vaccinated, in order to obtain her health passport.
His son, Jan Rek, explained that his mother willingly exposed herself to the disease which he and his father, both vaccinated, had caught before Christmas.
Two days before her death, Hana Horka wrote on social media: “I survived… It was colorful. So now there is going to be theatre, sauna, concert… and an urgent trip to the sea.”
It is hard, this core. And we must, just like the fifth wave, agree to live with it.
The political freaks
I am a fan of Politics buffs on RDI. Françoise Boivin, Jean-François Lisée, Pierre Moreau and Dimitri Soudas form a superb team with rich and diverse backgrounds. This quartet is masterfully led by a solid and sharp Sébastien Bovet. If the exchanges are sometimes full-bodied, the tone is always pleasant and constructive. This show is an essential service during a pandemic.
Speaking of essential service, the special live edition of Discovery, Sunday, with Anne-Marie Dussault and Charles Tisseyre, was extraordinary. And so necessary.