How to get the best doctors to practice in Quebec
About 20% of Quebecers do not have a family doctor. Almost 11,000 people are waiting over a year for medically necessary surgeries (including cancer surgeries) and the backlog of elective surgeries is 161,000 which will take years, if not decades to clear. Emergency rooms are as crowded as ever. Ambulances take too long to arrive and the list goes on.
The problems are not solely the responsibility of the CAQ, The PQ paid doctors to take early retirement. The Liberals centralized health care and added bureaucracies. The CAQ is now going even further and has added more disincentives for doctors to work in Quebec.
Now the CAQ wants to reduce the quality of doctors practicing in Quebec
The latest brain-dead plan is to require doctors going to Quebec medical schools to reimburse the cost of their education unless they practice a certain number of years in Quebec. If you were a quality medical school candidate, would you choose to go here when schools all over the world would take you? Aside from this latest insanity, consider all the other disincentives for coming to Quebec:
- If you are not Francophone your kids (or future offspring) would have to be educated in French (Bill 96).
- If you are Jewish, Muslim or Sikh, your kids and spouse would have to choose between what they wear and their beliefs if they want to work in several professions (Bill 21).
- If you are an international student your fees have been dramatically increased (unless you are from France or a few other Francophone countries) and Bill 74 would further limit the number of international students.
- If you come from another province of Canada, you will have additional French language requirements and higher fees.
- After you graduate, you will have to practice in whatever region Quebec dictates or take a 30% cut in pay.
- If you are a qualified doctor from outside Canada, you will need to do a residency in Canada. Ontario just dropped this requirement.
So, who will be left to attend our medical schools? Only those who couldn’t land a position elsewhere. Further, with less qualified students come poorer researchers and some of our cutting-edge research doctors may retire or leave the province.
What about private clinics?
Quebec actually has more private medicine options than Ontario but Ontario is catching up and will soon add private clinics for hip and knee surgeries. These exist now in Quebec but the patient pays. In Ontario the government will pay. The Quebec doctors’ corporation wants no more expansion of private clinics and even a reduction. Surveys show most Quebecers want more private options not less. Given the state of our ever-deteriorating public system, that is not surprising.
Those against private options say that most doctors will leave the public system and thus make things even worse but studies have shown in European countries with mixed private/public systems, people are happier, outcomes are better and no more than 15% of patients opt for private over public. In addition, if I get a new knee privately, the waiting list for the surgery shrinks benefiting everyone else. Of course, the woke, progressive, Marxist Liberal/Democrats want everyone treated the same even if that means everyone gets worse care. These people would ban all cars costing over $20,000 and insist we all live in modest houses and would ban private schools. I could go on but you get the idea.
But what does this have to do with the quality of doctors coming to Quebec? It is simple. If doctors have options, they are more likely to come here.
For more on these issues see:
Health Care – What Quebec can learn from Ontario
Prescription for improved medical care in Quebec and Canada
If you enjoy reading my Uncommon Sense articles, share them or forward them to others and invite them to subscribe. It is free and there is no advertising on my web site. Readers may agree or disagree but I hope they will be stimulated to consider other points of view.
2 Comments
Hopefully there will be more options offered in the future…
Please a change in our government
liberals hopefully will come in .
They are brainstorming
Dr. Bill Steinberg
Dr. Steinberg has a BSc from McGill University, a PhD in Psychology from Northwestern University, and was a professor at Concordia University. He was Mayor of the Town of Hampstead for 16 years and led the demerger battle. He was was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal and is currently President of the Cochlear Implant Recipients Association.