For twenty years, I have stalled regarding the ability of the health system in its current form to meet the needs of the population. I believe neither in structural reforms nor in reforms. The bases of this system (Monopoly, bureaucracy, domination of trade unions) condemn patients to wait.
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| Our healthcare system threatens our economy |
The pandemic has further highlighted the weaknesses of our healthcare system. Load shedding represents the price that patients pay for this fragility. Already, before the pandemic, thousands of patients found themselves waiting for surgeries. And at certain times, a high proportion exceeded medically recommended times.
A new argument is added today concerning the urgency of reviewing the functioning of health care in Quebec and Canada. The economic argument. The economist and chief strategist of the National Bank, Stéfane Marion, has just published an analysis note in which he identifies the inadequate capacities of our health system as a threat to economic growth in Quebec.
Impairments
The economist criticizes the health system for its general inefficiency, but also for specific flaws such as the low number of beds per 100,000 inhabitants. Like many others, he is sorry for the lack of robustness of the network when there is an influx of patients.
In an interview with Business, he even describes our poor health care system as a potential “structural obstacle” to economic growth. Marion's intervention comes at a time when we hope for an early transition from pandemic mode to endemic mode.
But even a so-called endemic virus can put pressure on health care. Without creating out-of-control waves like in a pandemic, it will at times generate additional demand for services.
The impression, to date, is that our healthcare system could hardly handle this pressure without going into jeopardy mode. Moreover, the month of January caused a crisis almost every year in the emergencies of Quebec for a long time. Even before the staff drain of the past two years.
Population resigned?
What I notice in discussing health during this pandemic is how little awareness people have of the depth of the problems plaguing health. Probably addicted to empty statements about the supposedly best system in the world.
The average Quebecer is quite accustomed to cursing the wait and deploring the flaws in the network. But deep down, he carries the illusion that it is perhaps one of the best systems in the world, that its foundations are good and that a very small renovation could fix everything. We imagine that a good minister in a good government could give the necessary magic wand.
It will not happen. Someone will have to have the courage to rethink the basics of the system. Perhaps an economist talking now about a threat to our economy will have a louder voice than patients waiting.
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