On October 26, Health Minister Christian Dubé announced the formation of a crisis team to improve the situation in emergencies, but surprisingly only one family doctor was invited.
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dr Georges Zaarour, medical director of the medical district’s emergency department, deplores this situation in a letter he sent to Minister Dubé, noting a “significant deficiency in terms of first-line representation” in the Crisis Cell Committee.
“We are the solution. We see 75,000 patients a year. In the emergency room alone, we treat 20,000 patients a year without a general practitioner. Last year we treated 6,000 patients in our designated children’s clinic,” says Dr. Zaarour up.
In addition to these large volumes, the super clinic offers excellent aftercare, which relieves the healthcare system in the long term.
“The beauty of a GMF-R or Superclinic is that we are able to provide continuity of care to this patient. We see it in the ER and after that, if there’s a follow-up – if it’s a follow-up, two follow-ups, three follow-ups – we can offer that solution to avoid a patient going back to the ER,” he explains.
dr Zaarour approaches Mr Dubé so that GPs can be invited to the crisis management committee.
“We have to be represented. The GMF-R, we are a flexible, malleable structure, we are open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. We have to be present.
The GMF District Médical was inaugurated in June 2020 and has more than 50 health professionals.
In 2 years they have registered more than 24,000 patients and are not only open to the public, which for some is a panacea because the waiting time for a doctor’s visit is significantly shorter.
“I’d rather come here than go to the ER. It’s really faster here, “says Myriam Bélisle Doré, mother of two, who received an emergency pediatric consultation in “less than five minutes”, she specifies.