(Quebec, Montreal) Minister Christian Dubé revealed that more than 830,000 Quebecers are waiting to see a medical specialist at the same time as the Federation of Medical Specialists of Quebec (FMSQ) expressed reservations about its vast reform, which will force you to do more. Mr. Dubé also deplores the lack of collaboration from the FIQ.

The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS) added a new indicator to its dashboard on Tuesday: the number of Quebecers waiting for a specialized medical examination. To date, 831,470 people are on the Service Request Dispatch Center (CRDS) lists to obtain an appointment with a medical specialist on the recommendation of a general practitioner.

This publication comes as the President of the FMSQ, Dr. Vincent Oliva, made his first public appearance since the tabling last Wednesday of Bill 15 aimed at making the health and social services system more efficient. The Dubé reform casts a wide net and plans to oblige medical specialists to carry out “specific medical activities” as general practitioners do.

These activities include participating in hospital calls, offering hours of work in unfavorable shifts and being available in the emergency room.

“We’re not against particular medical activities,” Dr. Oliva said. “If the department had told us, ‘we want to include this in the bill’, the next day we would have gone to Quebec, we would have sat down and we would have negotiated this. The problem is that we were not consulted. »

“I think we consulted them,” the Minister of Health retorted on Tuesday. Christian Dubé nevertheless welcomed the change in tone of the FMSQ, which last week denounced “the confrontational attitude of the MSSS” when the minister’s announcement was not yet complete. The doctors’ union said on Tuesday it “looks openly” at the bill and “takes the time to really analyze it.”

On the other hand, Dr. Oliva admitted that some doctors “could do more,” but that “that’s the minority.” “I don’t believe in specialties that do less. […] Doctors are working very hard. Last week, Minister Dubé said he did not want to “look for culprits”, but added that he expects a slump in certain specialties.

The data published on Tuesday provides a clearer idea of ​​the specialties and regions where the catch-up is more important. The list is longest in dermatology, with 104,592 patients waiting, of which 62,424 are out of time. Next come specialties such as immunology (72,289), gynecology (69,537) and ENT (69,221).

Christian Dubé denies putting pressure on medical specialists by publishing these data, recalling that he had undertaken to make them public. “I would tell you the specialists, they work very hard, they have enough pressure. What we want is to say, often as we do, it is do you need help in that specialty, in that region, ”illustrates the minister.

The minister does not deny that his bill could have been different if he had reached an agreement with the FMSQ more quickly, but “at some point, you have to draw the line”, he said.

Dr. Vincent Oliva noted several “good ideas” in the legislative text, such as “making more room for interdisciplinary decisions. However, he has concerns and reservations: “We are evacuating doctors from decision-making, when it is fundamental that we are there,” he lamented.

The opposition on Tuesday criticized the Prime Minister’s remarks to the president of the Quebec Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ), Julie Bouchard. On Monday, François Legault shared Patrick Lagacé’s column entitled “Bleaking for crying” using a sentence from his text.

“We have to talk about Julie Bouchard, president of the FIQ, the great union of nurses,” wrote Mr. Legault on his Twitter account.

The Parti Québécois claimed that this exit “is not dignified” and asked Mr. Legault to rectify the situation. The Liberals recalled that the Prime Minister must “be unifying” while Quebec solidaire argued that the tweet is “revealing of the attitude of François Legault [who is] in confrontation mode”.

“I completely agree with my premier on one thing: it’s much more difficult with the FIQ than with the other unions,” said Minister Dubé. “We saw a lot of unions who told us: ‘we want to collaborate’ and I haven’t heard that from the FIQ yet,” he lamented.

Public service unions expressed concern on Tuesday over the announced centralization of computer systems to Santé Québec, which will become the sole employer in the health network – which currently has 34. “When I heard that […] my anxiety has skyrocketed,” said the president of the Syndicat de professionnelles et professionnel du gouvernement du Québec (SPGQ), Guillaume Bouvrette. “The goal is laudable, but the question I ask myself is how we are going to get there,” he added, lamenting the “vicious circle” of using external expertise for government projects. More than 1,000 positions are to be filled through various ministries and organizations just to maintain and maintain the computer equipment, lamented the union, which is asking Quebec to tackle the labor shortage by “significantly” improving its salary offers.