In reaction to the public outing made on November 30 by the five commissioners of the Laurent commission, we would like to add our voices to theirs in order to express to Minister Christian Dubé our great concern about the place reserved for psychosocial services in the future. Quebec Health agency. As pediatricians and psychiatrists, we can attest to their invaluable contribution to patients’ journeys.
The debates surrounding the adoption of Bill 15 focused a lot on access to curative services, the desired reduction in emergency room congestion, the reduction of surgical waiting lists and faster access to a specialist doctor. . These very real network issues must be among the priorities. In addition, mental health needs and psychosocial resources are no less a priority. There is consensus that the impact of the healthcare system on the health of individuals is limited compared to that of other factors, such as the social and economic environment of individuals.
Mental health needs are exploding: 14,800 people are waiting for front-line mental health service, including 9,144 waiting out of time, and 51,000 employees are absent from the health and social services network. We know that more than 40% of absences are due to mental health problems. Even to carry out surgical interventions, you need stable staff, in good control of their emotions and on the job.
The picture in child protection is also alarming. The most recent statistics on child protection speak for themselves: nearly one in 5 children is reported to the Director of Youth Protection before the age of 18, one in 10 is taken into care by social services and one out of 20 are placed outside their family environment. The resources allocated to this epidemic cannot continue to be considered parallel, or even incidental, in the health network.
The reorganization of the network must be able to give pride of place, which has become necessary, to social services. The patient, child or adult, must be able to access the right relevant professional based on their needs and not on a diagnosis, whether in a school, community, or even in network services.
Inspiring examples that use social services exist, such as the Mental Health Access Mechanism project and the Quebec Program for the Treatment of Mental Disorders. These examples, which lower the barriers to accessing services, should inspire other initiatives of this type. They rely on several professionals who can use their skills and knowledge to improve the well-being and condition of patients, without having to wait for a diagnosis.
For children showing signs of developmental delay, Minister Lionel Carmant’s Act Early program initiative will not be able to be deployed adequately if essential professionals, such as social workers, speech therapists, psychoeducators, psychologists and occupational therapists, do not are not sufficiently valued in the public sector and continue their exodus towards the private sector.
It is unthinkable to deploy this type of initiative without the contribution of social services.
Faced with these observations, we re-emphasize the essential place that social services must occupy in the overhaul. Their major impact on the health of an entire population, for decades to come, must be affirmed and considered without compromise.
The debate launched by the commissioners around the name of the agency is anything but semantic. It lifts the veil on a whole section of public services offered to the population which risks once again being neglected in the maze of the immense machine that represents the Quebec health system.
Like the commissioners, we insist on the presence of “ top guns » social services in the work surrounding the creation of the new agency. We won’t get two chances to get it right. We are obliged to succeed in this shift for the thousands of Quebecers, including a significant number of children and people struggling with mental health problems, who rely on strong social services to ensure their well-being, their integration into society and their development. This consideration towards all actors in the network would be for the benefit of the patient, the health system and social services as a whole.