Quebec kicks health infrastructure work down the road
Quebec is putting the brakes on a lot of crucial health infrastructure projects – a kind of decision Quebec is prone to make on public installations until things actually crumble (e.g. metro and highway structures, school and hospital buildings).
La Presse has a companion piece about the bad state of the Douglas Hospital where mentally ill people are crammed into tiny rooms with strangers, illustrating the province’s general neglect of people with mental illnesses.
DeWolf 09:34 on 2025-04-16 Permalink
I’m struggling to understand the government’s logic with this push towards austerity. Is it just the CAQ knowing they won’t win the next election and deciding their approach will be fuck toute, let’s burn it all down? Or do they somehow think people will appreciate having crucial healthcare and infrastructure and educational funding slashed to the bone?
MtlWeb 10:13 on 2025-04-16 Permalink
With the arrival of Sante-Quebec, there have been serious staffing cuts to the radiology departments of our downtown sites, impacting access to the various tests (ultrasound, MRI, angio/intervention radiology). An odd area to target as the delays were a concern for in and out patients before these decisions. Our esteemed institution’s media people have kept this news off the radar but for those working in the system, it’s one more slap in the face to health care common sense. Of course, many wonder about the elephant in the Sante Quebec room, Biron medical imaging/radiology, and if some of the diagnostic/treatment exams will be out-sourced to these clinics by the top-guns running Sante-Quebec.
roberto 12:22 on 2025-04-16 Permalink
This is neo-libieralism at it’s finest. Starve the public services, claim they’re not efficent and the population will be better with privitization. Hand it over to the private sector where the population will end up footing the ‘profit tax’ to the private sector (there’s always a profit tax)
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Sharing this story because I’ve now heard it happen to three different people. A seriously ill patient is scheduled for surgery at a private clinic, with everything covered by RAMQ — so far, so normal. But on the day of the procedure, once the patient is already prepped and in the blue gown, the clinic suddenly decides they can’t go through with it. Surgery is canceled, postponed, to be rebooked at a hospital instead.
Three people. Three separate stories. Same exact scenario.
Makes you wonder how much these clinics are billing — and profiting — even when the surgeries don’t actually happen.
Joey 14:12 on 2025-04-16 Permalink
All of this – cuts, delayed capital projects, etc. – was designed to get the province back on track to a balanced budget to avoid a credit downgrade. S&P just reduced our credit rating, which means that our debt-repayment/borrowing costs will increase, it will take longer to return to a balanced budget, and there will be more pressure to cut public expenditures, which will mean (even more) cuts to services (health care) to citizens in the very short term and (even more) contentious labour negotiations as existing agreements expire. Add on the insane trade policy roller-coaster from the US and we’ve got ourselves a real crisis.
Kevin 15:54 on 2025-04-16 Permalink
Cheaping out on maintenance and proper construction is a choice and a mindset.
And yes, big bold projects do open themselves up to corruption (hello MUHC Glen site) but the more a society builds those projects, the more internal expertise it gets in developing anti-corruption habits.
azrhey 15:20 on 2025-04-17 Permalink
As someone who has 4 MRIs and 2 ultrasounds a year ( fun fun genetic mutation, but hey at least I am getting properly screened for free [for now]! ) I can attest that the services/delays at the Glen and that MGH have increased a lot in the last year or so. It used to be that I went in for my full body MRI on a Sunday morning at 8am and was out by 9, 9:15 … now I am lucky if I get called before 11am. Where the used to be at least 3 techs to get me set up, now there is only one frazzled person worried I’d scream at her because it was so long…
I was chatting in Spanish with the tech last weekend because she thought I was Spanish and I told her “Lady! you’re not paid enough for me to yell at you”
Uatu 12:12 on 2025-04-19 Permalink
Just be comforted that the elimination of the two other techs were to pay for salary raises for Genevieve Biron and the top gun management at sante QC. Efficiency! Lol