Screaming headlines suggesting record numbers of family doctors are streaming for the exits of Quebec’s public health-care system guaranteed a packed house for a College of Physicians conference on the subject here on May 9.
Quebec Health Minister Dr. Gaetan Barrette said doctors who do not improve productivity will “face consequences.”
But it was the province’s new health minister who stole the show during a morning conference session featuring both sides of the public-versus-private health-care debate.
Held just days after the Journal de Montréal reported that 200 general practitioners are now in private practice in Quebec-twice the number as in 2007-it attracted a capacity crowd of some 400 physicians and residents to the Château Frontenac.
The first speaker-Dr. Marc Lacroix, who opened the first private medical clinic in the provincial capital in 2009-argued that private clinics complement the public system and provide more timely access. “Sixty per cent of our patients have a family doctor (but) are rotting on waiting lines (and) searching for help,” said Dr. Lacroix.
He added that, as a physician, he also enjoys the “complementary aspects of private practice,” such as having more control over staff and scheduling.
Dr. Vadeboncoeur
The second speaker, Dr. Alain Vadeboncoeur, an emergency physician and the president of Quebec Doctors for the Public System, countered that private clinics undermine manpower and confidence in the public system. “Accessibility shouldn’t depend on a patient’s ability to pay.”
In an interview, the president of the Quebec Federation of General Practitioners (FMOQ) downplayed the news about the so-called exodus of Quebec GPs toward the private sector.
“Two hundred is not a huge number when you’re talking about more than 7,000 family doctors in Quebec,” Dr. Louis Godin said. “But it is cause for concern (and) a symptom of something.”
The new health minister, Dr. Gaètan Barrette, also spoke and used his appearance to berate his critics and plead with doctors to work with him-or else. Notably, Dr. Barrette also said he would impose penalties on health-care professionals who did not make efforts to reduce costs and improve productivity.
“It won’t be the apocalypse, but I am telling you that there is going to a clear change in direction,” Dr. Barrette told listeners. “You can either go in our direction or face the consequences.”
He refused to give details of what those changes and penalties could be. “They will be simple but efficient,” Dr. Barrette said afterward in media scrum. “The resources in the system now are adequate. They just need to be managed well.”
Dr. Barrette also told his medical audience they have “the opportunity to participate in the healthy management of the system (and) protect your revenues.”
He added that his role as health minister is to “ensure money is well spent.”
That jives with Liberal election promise to reduce the price of generic medication and ensure that all medical imaging, such as scans and ultrasounds, carried out in private clinics would be covered by public health care.
Dr. Barrette also confirmed that he will work to fulfil another promise: To create 50 “super clinics,” which would be open seven days a week, to alleviate the stress on hospitals.
“This is not private medicine,” he added. “(Super clinics) are conventional.” MP
(Reprinted from Medical Post and WRITTEN BY MARK CARDWELL ON MAY 20, 2014 FOR THE MEDICAL POST)
