PQ wants nurses to offer more care options

Would revamp network of clinics

A Parti Québécois government would decompartmentalize clinical acts so that other health professionals and not just doctors could perform them, revisit how doctors are paid and reduce the workloads of nurses and nursing aides and assistants, according to the party’s platform on health.

Looking ahead to the fall election, the PQ disclosed its strategy for health care Sunday at a news conference given by Leader JeanFrançois Lisée, health critic Diane Lamarre, and Dave Turcotte, opposition critic for social services and youth protection.

The plan includes a network of clinics run by nurse practitioners to handle minor emergencies and follow certain illnesses. The clinics would have no doctors. The plan would also feature teams of nurses and pharmacists in long-term care centres.

The Liberal government and Health Minister Gaétan Barrette have been criticized lately in the wake of an announcement of a hike in fees for medical specialists and a cri de coeur by nurses about their working conditions.

The financial envelope offered by Quebec to its 10,000 specialists will go from $4.7 billion in 20172018 to $5.4 billion in 2022-2023, according to an agreement in principle made public Friday.

The agreement in principle means that specialists would pocket about $2 billion in increased billings and salary hikes and other increases.

The PQ announced that, if elected, it would immediately suspend the payment of additional benefits granted by the Couillard government to GPs and specialists.

“The great majority of Quebecers — and many doctors — consider that this is indecent,” Lisée said. “When we see that the Liberals reduced home care by 500,000 hours in 2016 and gave the money to doctors, when we see the burnout of nurses and nursing aides and that money is needed there, everyone sees that it makes no sense to give $3 billion over 10 years to 22,000 doctors.”

A PQ government would also negotiate with general practitioners and the specialists to revisit the way in which doctors are paid, Lisée said.

“The model in Quebec, in which doctors are paid almost exclusively by the act, is the worst way to do things,” Lisée said.

Presse Canadienne