My Tuesday column on Christian Dubé’s mammoth health reform earned me several messages. Everyone worried about what happens next. One question, on the other hand, mainly came from the youngest.
Mme Legault, they ask me, what are you talking about when you say that Quebecers want to regain what they had in terms of services “before the first cuts under Lucien Bouchard and the mad scientist reforms under Philippe Couillard and Gaétan Barrette”?
Damn good question. So, here it is. I was born in a working-class neighborhood during the Quiet Revolution. So I experienced the periods before and after the creation, in 1970, by the Bourassa government, of our universal and free health insurance plan with its famous sun card created in 1976.
Before 1970, even poor people could get treatment, very well indeed, in hospital. With a doctor, it depended on whether or not he agreed to charge less for his services to poor patients.
Ours rarely charged my mother for his services. He knew that his means were limited and that my sister, whom he was treating, also had an intellectual disability.
From 1970, everything changed. For the best. What followed was not perfect, but the health network, which became public and free, began to function much better, in fact, than today. I’m telling you.
Easy to get an appointment
Quebecers who wanted to have a family doctor had one. To make an appointment, all you had to do was call his office. A kind secretary, not a voicemail, answered.
If it was urgent, she asked you to come the same day or the next day. Otherwise, at the latest, the following week. Yes yes.
For tests, the doctor sent a request to the hospital. We were summoned within a few days. No endless waiting or expensive private imaging clinics.
To see a specialist, the family doctor or his secretary called his office directly for an appointment. Imagine the efficiency.
Access to a family doctor being easy, emergencies were mainly used for very urgent cases. There were plenty of nurses there. All to the public. No private agencies.
Older hospitals were clean. We didn’t come away with any nasty infections. Ambulances also arrived immediately at people’s homes.
Oh yes, I forgot. Family doctors even made house calls. I swear! And if you didn’t have a family doctor, there were walk-in clinics where you could see a doctor quickly.
A golden age of only 25 years
We also created CLSCs. Real community medicine with doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, etc. Children and adults with intellectual disabilities also had good care and social services.
And you know what? There were no mega CIUSSS and their CEOs disconnected from the field. Each establishment, small or large, had its boss on site. The public network was decentralized, fast and humane.
At least, until the brutal cuts in 1996 under Lucien Bouchard. In 2004, a certain François Legault, PQ MP and former Minister of Health, even said this:
“We must bluntly recognize that the retirement of thousands of nurses and doctors, as well as the departure of a thousand special education teachers and speech therapists who care for our most vulnerable students, have been mistakes that we must fully accept.”
In 2015, Gaétan Barrette’s ultracentralist reforms hammered the final nail into the coffin of a public network already weakened by years of cutbacks. Hence the rise in private care paid out of our pockets in addition to our taxes.
In short, in Quebec, from 1970 to the mid-1990s, the golden age of fully universal, free and accessible medicine only lasted 25 years. Find the mistake…