Quebec presents a bill to improve public access to GPs

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QUEBEC – The president of the union representing Quebec general practitioners said Thursday that a government bill designed to boost access to a family doctor through better time management is moving in the right direction.

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But Quebec opposition parties described the proposed legislation as a showcase that will not add doctors to the network and will not help the thousands of Quebecers waiting in line to sign up for a family doctor.

“They seem to see things the way we do and put them on the table a few months ago,” Dr. Louis Godin, president of the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens (FMOQ), which represents 10,000, said in a statement. doctors.

“We do not deny that there is a problem. We have always been willing to act in partnership with the government to improve access. “

Introducing Bill 11 to the legislature, Health and Social Services Minister Christian Dubé noted that Quebec wants to negotiate with doctors to improve the system rather than go the more dramatic route of imposing sanctions and quotas on patients. family doctors who refuse to see more patients.

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The bill proposes to implement a time management platform in Quebec where doctors are required to list their availability and patients search for appointments where there are vacancies.

“It’s a bit like the Trivago system,” Dubé told reporters at a press conference, referring to the travel site that matches people to empty hotel rooms.

The bill states that Quebec will oblige doctors to “be available” to people looking for a family doctor by posting vacancies on the website.

Doctors will only be able to accept new patients who are already waiting in the appointment booking system operated by the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec.

Quebec can also, by regulation, determine the percentage of blocks where a doctor must be available Monday through Friday, before 8 am and after 7 pm, as well as on Saturdays and Sundays.

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Quebec could share data on the current physician workload with regional health authorities so that they can better guide physicians to respond to citizens’ needs.

“This bill could surprise people,” Dubé said. “You will see that there is no coercion in this. There are no punitive measures. Nothing of that. It is a canvas of work. For me it is a management bill ”.

Dubé added that the advantage of the system is that everyone will have the same data at the time of eventual negotiations with doctors, which remain on the table.

Dubé made a new revelation. He said he believes that the number of people seeking a family doctor is actually much higher, around 1.5 million, than the current official number, which is 800,000.

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That’s because many people who are fed up with waiting have just given up on the process, he said. In the 2018 election campaign, the Avenir Québec Coalition promised to give everyone access to a family doctor, but that has not happened.

Bombarded with questions about how he expects the system to work, Dubé said some things have changed in Quebec. For one thing, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed dating websites like Click health You can work. You can also do more telemedicine.

The invoice is an exit. Just a week ago, Prime Minister François Legault threatened to legislate to force doctors to accept more patients.

The opposition parties were not impressed.

“I’m thinking about today’s patients,” said liberal leader Dominique Anglade. “The government is offering them a marketing operation. The bill has no objectives or guarantee that Quebecers will get their fair share ”.

“There is a smell of Big Brother in this,” added Vincent Marissal, a Québec health charity critic. “The minister wants to have personal access to data on how doctors spend their time.”

The bill will be considered by a committee of the legislature in January.

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