The Minister of Health Christian Dubé has failed in this task, denounces the opposition in Quebec, the day after Quebec's emergency chiefs made sharp statements denouncing the situation that had spiraled “out of control” in their services.
Posted at 7:02 p.m.
“Minister Dubé has failed in his responsibilities,” Liberal MP André Fortin said in response to the alarming emergency situation reported by La Presse on Saturday.
In a letter addressed to the Minister of Health, the Regroupement des chefs d'urgence du Québec (RCUQ) regrets that emergencies “got out of control” while “the Minister's entire attention was focused on Christian's comprehensive reform Dube.” The health network was “completely frozen” and the emergency situation had “dramatically deteriorated”.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
The official opposition spokesman for health, Liberal MP André Fortin.
“When emergency managers repeatedly question a minister and warn him of serious consequences for patients, he has no right to ignore their concerns,” said the spokesman for the official opposition on health issues.
Since August, emergency doctor associations have repeatedly drawn the attention of ministerial teams to overloads in emergency rooms. At the end of November, two patients died in the overcrowded emergency room of the Anna Laberge Hospital in Châteauguay. The investigation is open.
“The recent deaths in waiting rooms, as high-profile as they are, are just the tip of the iceberg,” argued RCUQ President Dr. Marie Maud Couture.
“When it becomes clear that there are people who die because they didn’t see a doctor, that’s still pretty serious,” criticized Solidarity MP Vincent Marissal. According to him, Christian Dubé “has obviously failed in his first task and mission, which is to ensure that people have access to the services.”
Last year, Quebec created a crisis unit to ease emergency room overload. According to Dr. For Marie-Maud Couture, these efforts brought “improvements in certain operations,” but then they ran out of steam. Since Bill 15 was presented last March, crisis team meetings have taken place less frequently.
On Friday, Minister Christian Dubé's office assured that he had been visiting emergency rooms since last week.
“We are concerned about the situation in our emergency rooms. We follow it every day with the teams. Our job is to make sure we get the urgent done while working on the important. “We all have people who are there for this,” we assured.
“What is worrying today is the realization that emergency managers have been contacting the ministry for months in vain,” reacted PQ MP Joël Arseneau, accusing Christian Dubé of “turning a deaf ear”.
It is his ministerial responsibility that is at stake at this time, while he has washed his hands of a crisis that has become permanent, with the risks this poses to the quality of care, the health of patients and of the staff
Joël Arsenault, PQ MP
Recently, the President of the Association of Emergency Medicine Specialists, Dr. Gilbert Boucher, admitted that the emergency situation “is beginning to frighten” his members.
“For two weeks there have been hospitals that are in the 200% range and it is precisely during this time that patients come into the waiting rooms who are not seen and die,” he said in an interview with La Presse in early December.
With Fanny Lévesque and Ariane Lacoursière, La Presse