Passing the blame for health-care ills

Re: “MUHC needs to be ‘stabilized’: Barrette” (Montreal Gazette, May 17) Health Minister Gaétan Barrette says the “issue of the day is to make sure that the MUHC is stabilized.” I beg to differ.

The issue of the day should be to ensure that all healthcare facilities and providers have sufficient funding, staffing and tools not only to maintain, but improve the quality of medical care in this province.

In discussing the MUHC, Barrette says “the morale is not where it should be for that type of institution and I think this is where the efforts (need) to be put today.” Rather, morale is not where it should be because Barrette has wielded his budget scalpel and pared funding to the bone to the point where we, as patients, are paying the price.

Nowhere does the minister make reference to the damage caused by his cuts — long emergency-room waiting times, surgical delays, lack of family doctors and the myriad other problems plaguing our health-care system.

Barrette has often spoken of how his streamlining will benefit us. Regretfully, the opposite has proven to be the case.

The most telling comment — “The reasoning of these people is always the same” — shows Barrette’s true colours by making our health-care professionals sound like an irritating group of incessant whiners.

His open disdain for the professionals, both medical and administrative, who are entrusted with our health and care is, frankly, abusive and insulting.

Things will not improve until there is a change at the top of the Health Ministry, and it’s high time for that. Gaétan “Scissorhands” Barrette has more than overstayed his welcome.

Bob Vanier, Montreal