Family doctors: telemedicine and online appointment to improve access

Inspired by the experience during the pandemic, the Legault government is banking on telemedicine, combined with online appointment booking, to keep its promise to offer a family doctor to all Quebecers by the end of their term. mandate.

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“We are not heading towards a broken promise,” assured the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, at a press conference on Friday, alongside Prime Minister François Legault.

Friday morning, The newspaper reported that a Montrealer will have to wait 864 days before getting a new family doctor. Right now, 82% of Quebecers are registered with a general practitioner and the rate is dropping below 75% in some regions. Besides, The duty revealed on Friday that 100,000 Quebeckers have been added to the waiting list for the Access to a family doctor for a year.

But Mr. Dubé says the situation has improved since the election of the CAQ, going from 6.4 million to 6.6 million registered people. Additionally, registration has been slowed by the pandemic. At the height of the crisis, doctors were invited to respond to requests for consultations, whether it was their patient or not. “And that, of course, changed the situation because, for three, four months, anyone could call, whether registered or not,” illustrates the minister.

This experience of online and telephone consultations inspired the government, which saw it as a way to increase the number of patients seen by a doctor. “We realized that telemedicine has given us a helping hand, because there are people who no longer need to go, precisely, to the clinic, then to be able to be served well, ”explains the Minister.

Combined with making an appointment online via Rendez-vous santé Québec and Bonjour-santé, telemedicine will provide access to a doctor within 36 hours, said Mr. Dubé, with reference to another commitment from the CAQ. “And that is the start of capitation,” he said of the new form of remuneration that his government wants to impose on part of the medical profession. Rather than being paid on a fee-for-service basis, they would be remunerated for the care of a group of patients.

For his part, the president of the Fédération des omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ), Dr.^r Louis Godin, argues that, despite its advantages, remote consultation “will not replace all office visits, far from it”. His organization also estimates that there is a shortage of nearly 1,000 physicians to adequately meet the needs of the Quebec population.

In addition, in addition to controlling COVID-19, Quebec’s economic recovery and the tabling of the GHG reduction plan will be at the heart of the next parliamentary session, which begins next week in Quebec.

Prime Minister François Legault has confirmed his intention to table a new version of Bill 61 which will focus on speeding up expropriations and environmental assessments. “It doesn’t make sense for it to take years before starting construction,” argues Mr. Legault.

It is possible to reduce the delays “without reducing the standards”, he added in English.

Moreover, even if Bill 61 was presented as an economic stimulus project last spring, the Prime Minister confided that he was already planning to tackle these delays for expropriations and environmental assessments “even before the pandemic ”, in order to keep its promises made during the 2018 election campaign.

– With the collaboration of TVA Nouvelles