REACTION: More public health care will not solve our access problems

• Universal is not synonymous with public, points out the MEI

Montreal, November 5, 2024 – Independent clinics and care providers help improve access to health care, points out an MEI researcher in reaction to recent statements by Health Minister Christian Dubé.

“If the independent system is growing, it’s because the government health care system is not meeting the needs of Quebec patients,” explains Emmanuelle B. Faubert, economist at the MEI. “By fighting against independent clinics and nurses, Quebec is depriving itself of some of the only structures that are maintaining a certain access to care.

“The Minister is insisting on eliminating the contribution of the independent system, when that is precisely what enables the universal systems of France, Germany, and Sweden to meet the needs of the population.”

In a declaration to the National Assembly a little earlier today, Minister Dubé said he wanted the government to gradually wean itself off of the private care system, in particular the contribution of specialized medical centres.

This declaration is another in a series of announcements from the minister that target private health care, including eliminating the use of independent nurses and increasing the time required to disaffiliate from the RAMQ.

Data published by Le Devoir show that access to the operating rooms of specialized medical centres allowed several regions to exceed their pre-pandemic surgical volumes.

“What specialized medical centres did for the Quebec health care system was to increase the number of surgeries carried out in the province,” explains Ms. Faubert. “Doctors say so themselves: they can perform more surgeries for the public system on days when they work in an SMC.”

In a report published in 2019 on the performance of specialized medical centres, 88 per cent of anesthesiologists and 85 per cent of surgeons considered that they were able to perform more operations when they spent a day working in an SMC than when they worked a day in a hospital.

The same report found that a majority of doctors thought they were between 20 and 40 per cent more productive in these private facilities.

The researcher points out that the concepts of universal access and public administration are not synonymous.

“Public does not mean accessible; it simply means that the administrators are bureaucrats,” says Ms. Faubert. “If the minister put as much energy into fighting the lack of access to care as he does fighting the independent system, we might not have the waiting lists we have today.”

The French system, among others, guarantees universal access to patients and reimburses the same amount for treatments whether these are delivered in a public facility, a private non-profit facility, or a private for-profit facility.

Past MEI publications have shown that the contributions of private health institutions have helped improve access to care in the German, Dutch, Swedish, and British health systems.

* * *

The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Calgary, and Ottawa. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

– 30 –

Interview requests
Renaud Brossard
Vice President, Communications
Cell: 514-743-2883