Is there a doctor in the house?
Ayer’s Cliff health Co-op faces uncertain future due to lack of government support
The Massawippi Valley Health Centre (CSVM) put out a renewed call for members and doctors on Tuesday morning after close to nine months of fruitless appeals to the provincial health ministry for help in getting a second, part-time general practitioner.
“It is very important for us to make ourselves heard,” said Richard Violette, President of the CSVM. “We are responding to a crying need in our community, but government controls over the distribution of doctors’ permits are making it difficult for us to access the expertise we need.”
Violette praised the health cooperative as a centre that has allowed more than 1600 members to have somewhere in the area of 8700 healthcare related visits in the last two years at no cost to the provincial government. He said that he feels the government is making a “monumental error” in not supporting to the CSVM’S search for additional doctors, accusing the Liberals of focusing on healthcare for urban Quebecers while leaving rural communities in the dust.
“The rhetoric from the Minister of Health is not meeting reality,” said CSVM Vice-president Carol Mooney. “We hear from Doctor Barrette that there
are plenty of Doctors, but when we go to the CIUSSS, they say they’re short. We’re hearing mixed messages.”
Mooney shared that after losing their second doctor, the cooperative worked hard on appeals through different channels to try and draw in part-time expertise.
“We wrote letters to all the family medical groups,” the Vice President said. “All of them have come back and said that they are short.”
Mooney explained that, in Quebec, doctors who have been assigned to a particular region are authorized to practice outside of that area so long as they do not earn more than 45 per cent of their income in doing so. Relying on that flexibility, the Vice-president said that the cooperative had hoped to attract older doctors who might want to come out to the townships on weekends as they near retirement.
In reality, however, she said that most doctors in that category that they have managed to reach have been so burnt out by the demands of the system that they have turned down the offer.
“Our orthopedic surgeon is here twice a month. He has a cottage on the Georgeville road. He works at the Glen Site and then he comes down on Thursday night and works with us on Fridays,” Mooney said. “If we could find a general practitioner who would do the same thing, that would be great.”
Finding that GP was the main focus of Tuesday’s conference, according to Violette. The president explained that the cooperative is now starting to be concerned about its ability to remain open in the long term without another doctor.
“To become viable again, we need another doctor,” Violette said, setting the membership level needed for viability at 2200, versus the current 1600. The challenge, he continued, is that people do not want to sign up for membership at a clinic that does not have enough doctors. “With no doctor, we’ll have no new members.”
Coalition Avenir Quebec Health Critic François Paradis questioned the Health Minister about the CSVM’S situation on Tuesday afternoon and called on local MNAS to support the clinic in its struggles.
Orford MNA Pierre Reid said that he recognizes the importance of the clinic to the local community and disagreed with the notion that the government has done nothing to help.
“A doctor's not a little soldier that you can send from place to place when you need it,” Reid said before adding that Barrette has sent seven new doctors to the Magog area in the last year. The Orford MNA pointed out that a lack of doctors is a challenge that any clinic outside of the medical system can face
“We have been working hard for the better part of a year to try and find a solution,” Reid said, adding that just last week he proposed a “service corridor” with the regional healthcare establishment that would allow CSVM members who need to see a doctor a more direct access to nearby resources.
“It's not a simple solution,” he said “(Barrette) is working on it.”
Ayer’s Cliff Mayor Alec Van Zuiden was very critical of the provincial government for a lack of clear communication on the matter of the clinic. While recognizing that the Health Minister is busy, Van Zuiden noted that the Town of Ayer’s Cliff has been able to meet face to face with Marie-claude Bibeau, Federal Minister of International Relations and the Francophonie more than 10 times in the last year versus zero meetings between Barrette and the CSVM.
“It’s so frustrating,” the Mayor said. “There is something wrong here.”
Van Zuiden spoke passionately as a part of Tuesday’s conference, highlighting the fact that the co-op has been a lifechanger for elderly English speakers who do not feel they can trust the healthcare system.
“There are a lot of English people that just have an abhorrent fear of falling into the Quebec medical system and being served in French, and so they don’t go,” the Mayor said. “Some of the people who came here to see doctors are people who haven’t seen doctors in years, and that’s not right. We’re in Quebec; we’re not in a third world country.”
Van Zuiden called the clinic a clear example of the community coming together to help itself, and said that he has a definite interest in seeing the project continue as a member of the co-op, a citizen of Ayer’s Cliff, and as the Mayor.
“(The Health Minister) is doing a lot of good things, but everything can be improved upon,” he said. “We’re saying let us show you how we tie into your vision and give you some continuous improvement here.”
Speaking to that idea, Mooney pointed out that all signs point to an increased need for healthcare services in the coming years.
“All of the literature points to a tsunami of health crises about to hit over the next 10 years” the Vice President said. “It’s just going to really complicate everything and the health system is not ready for it. They need us.”