It’s high time to take the bull by the horns. It is high time to invest strategically in prevention. It is high time to invest in our Quebec of tomorrow and create a Quebec model for sustainable health.
We’ve known each other for a long time – too long! – that the move towards prevention leads to concrete and lasting results.
The physical and mental state of our youth and our adults is alarming but not irreversible. So why is it so difficult to persuade a government to take real leadership in this line of common sense? Maybe it’s us! Are our priorities as citizens really in the right place?
prevention
There are several areas where prevention has really paid off. On the roads of Québec, for example, we have done an excellent job of reducing the number of road deaths through prevention. Mandatory seat belts in 1976, improvement in road design, paving of numbered roadsides, better design of cars in the event of an impact, etc. Road tolls increased from 2209 fatalities in 1973 to 766 in 2000 and finally to fewer than 291 in 2022, when six times more cars are on the streets. If we hadn’t turned to prevention, that estimate could have reached 12,000 deaths per year in Quebec. Who wants to go back today? Person!
Visit Quebec companies to see how safety culture has changed since the 1970’s and 80’s to meet the current goal of zero accidents. Although there are still accidents at work, everyone sits around the same table to achieve excellence: employees and employers. The state regulator is called CNESST. And it works !
In 2011, we launched the first genetic screening program for four serious hereditary diseases in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean. After several struggles and refusals from the Ministry of Health, we were finally able to put together a real prevention program that would not only serve as a model worldwide, but also give hope for 95 more deadly diseases to be integrated in Quebec.
Imagine the financial and, above all, human benefits of a prevention program that is unique in the world. In Quebec, we don’t just want to prevent, we want to heal!
These three examples show how prevention can be a powerful lever to reverse trends and maintain systems.
investments required
At this stage of the appraisal of funds, where we will see the healthcare budget grow from $39 billion in 2019 to $59 billion in just 5 years, imagine the continuation in the context of an aging population and inactive youth.
I know Minister Dubé has been innovative in overhauling the healthcare system by integrating prevention. Thank you 1000 times! First the door had to be opened. But the few tens of millions that are planned are not enough, because in order to see concrete results, the investment must reach a billion dollars a year.
I urge our government to be visionary and think about sustainable health. To put into action the financial levers necessary to create a Quebec model that inverts the sedentary lifestyle curve, the curative cost curve, the public health underfunding curve, the underfunding curve of our Quebec sports federations . Finally to create a national value that will be our pride!
Pierre Lavoie, Co-Founder of the Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie, Co-Founder of the Sustainable Health Summit, Former Driving Instructor, Former Pulp and Paper Mill Worker, Former ESS (Environment, Health and Safety) Officer at RTA and Former Spokesperson for Hereditary Disease Research and Action Corporation
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