Dubé defends special law on doctors on “Tout le monde en parle”

Health Minister Christian Dubé defended the special law adopted under a gag order imposing a new method of remuneration for doctors on Sunday evening on the set of the show “Tout le monde en parle.”

The minister said he was committed to “better explaining the bill” to the public and doctors in the coming days.

Dubé was greeted by several hundred doctors who came to express their dissatisfaction in front of Radio-Canada in Montreal.

In addition to imposing a new method of remuneration for doctors, partly based on the achievement of performance objectives, the special law adopted early Saturday morning prohibits doctors from engaging in “concerted actions” that could harm access to care and training, under penalty of heavy penalties.

For example, three doctors who jointly decide to leave the network or stop teaching could face severe penalties: fines of up to $20,000 per day, disciplinary measures, etc.

Upon arriving on the panel hosted by Guy A. Lepage, Dubé immediately acknowledged that “there are indeed a lot of people who are angry, especially doctors.”

“These negotiations didn’t start off very well. There were some bad words, some not very kind words, from both sides. And I admit that we may not have been fair at the beginning,” Dubé said, adding that this affected the rest of the negotiations.

He defended the special law, saying that there was an “urgent need to act,” particularly for patients. The minister said that the fact that doctors had stopped teaching students was an “aggravating factor.”

“As a responsible government, we had to make a decision and say that this was what had to be done,” he maintained.

Asked by Guy A. Lepage if he feared that dissatisfied doctors would turn to the private sector, Dubé replied that the law provides a “method” if such an exodus to the private sector occurred.

The Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists (FMSQ) already announced Friday that it would challenge the law in court. In a social media post on Saturday, the Quebec Federation of General Practitioners (FMOQ) also said it “will definitely challenge this law in court.”

–With information from Caroline Plante, The Canadian Press

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews