Liberal MNA André Fortin shows Quebec health minister how difficult it is to get a doctor’s appointment

Quebec Liberal MNA André Fortin took advantage of Tuesday’s budget review to show the Minister of Health just how difficult it is to get a medical appointment.

In the middle of a parliamentary committee meeting, Fortin visited the “Rendez-vous santé Québec” website to try to get a consultation with his own family doctor in the Outaouais region.

“It tells me: ‘No appointments meeting your search criteria are available at the moment,’” he read aloud.

The elected official then tried to get an appointment with another health professional in the same Family Medicine Group, at a clinic within a 25-kilometre radius, without success.

“What do we do?” he asked Health Minister Christian Dubé, who suggested he use the Guichet d’accès à la première ligne (GAP).

Fortin said his assistant, who doesn’t have a family doctor, recently tried her luck with the GAP in the Outaouais but couldn’t get an appointment.

“So, what is this person supposed to do?” repeated Fortin, pointing out that the government is asking Quebecers not to go to emergency rooms.

He said that the ‘Clic Santé’ portal often directs patients to fee-based services provided by private clinics.

Dubé pointed out that family doctors have committed to making 900,000 appointments available annually.

He will know in two weeks whether these slots will indeed be made available to Quebecers.

Dubé’s team also revealed on Tuesday that the “crisis unit” set up in 2022 to improve the situation in emergency departments will be maintained.

Fortin lamented the fact that occupancy rates in many of the province’s ERs are so high that they are putting patients’ lives at risk. “The situation hasn’t changed a bit,” he said.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Dr. Stéphane Bergeron replied that the crisis unit meets every two weeks, and that it met last Friday.

“There is a clear desire to perpetuate an operational cell with a focus on how to reduce the average length of stay in emergency and improve care in emergency,” he said.

During the discussion, Fortin recalled that the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) had promised in 2018 to reduce the average wait to 90 minutes to see a doctor in emergency rooms.

He lamented that only four of the 115 ERs in Quebec reach the 90-minute mark. At the Anna-Laberge hospital in Châteauguay, the wait is currently 13 hours.

Private mini-hospitals will be geriatric clinics

During the 2022 election campaign, the CAQ also promised to build two private mini-hospitals, one in Montreal and the other in Quebec City, to relieve congestion in the healthcare system.

On Tuesday, Québec solidaire (QS) health critic Vincent Marissal asked Minister Dubé about the conversion of these mini-hospitals, which he saw announced in the appropriation books.

Dubé confirmed that the mini-hospitals would eventually be converted into geriatric clinics, “much more geared to the needs of an ageing clientele.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews