Latest news with #SantéQuébec
CBC
17-07-2025
- Health
- CBC
New leader coming to Winnipeg's infectious disease lab
A new leader is coming to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, after its head stepped down just months after taking over leadership of the embattled laboratory that was previously at the centre of a security scandal involving a Chinese scientist. Microbiologist Jean Longtin will leave his position as vice-president of the laboratory on July 25, less than six months after taking on the role, and has accepted a position with Santé Québec that will begin in August, a spokesperson for Health Canada confirmed in an email Thursday. Health Canada also confirmed that Jason Kindrachuk, Canada Research Chair in the Molecular Pathogenesis of Emerging Viruses and an associate professor at the University of Manitoba Max Rady College of Medicine, will join the agency as the new vice-president of the lab beginning later this month. When Longtin took the reins of the federally run laboratory in January, he was tasked with implementing recommendations of the special committee on the Canada-China relationship. Those recommendations stemmed from concerns about Chinese espionage. In 2019, two Canadian researchers of Chinese origin, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the lab before later being fired. Declassified Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents tabled in the House of Commons in February 2024 said the couple provided confidential scientific information to China and posed a credible security threat to the country. The federal government said Longtin decided to take a role in Quebec to be closer to his family. Kindrachuk, who will begin his new role as head of the lab on July 28, has "significant experience in the areas of biochemistry and infectious diseases, and an extensive track record of scientific research," Health Canada said. His research has focused on the circulation, transmission and pathogenesis of emerging viruses that pose the greatest threat to global human and animal health, including Ebola viruses, coronaviruses and influenza viruses, the University of Manitoba website says. The lab in Winnipeg is a biosafety Level 4 infectious disease laboratory, the only one of its kind in Canada, and with maximum containment, scientists at the lab are able to work with pathogens including Ebola, Marburg virus and Lassa fever, the federal government says.
Montreal Gazette
16-07-2025
- Health
- Montreal Gazette
More than 900,000 Quebecers on wait lists for consultations with medical specialists
By Aaron Derfel Nearly two out of three Quebecers in need of a consultation with a medical specialist are waiting past medically acceptable delays — up from 41 per cent at the end of 2023, Health Ministry statistics reveal. In total, nearly 910,000 Quebecers were waiting for a consultation with a specialist as of May 31, the latest date for which such figures are available. That compares with almost 832,000 people who were waiting for a consultation on Dec. 31, 2023. The figures are the latest indication of persistent access problems in the health network more than half a year into the mandate of Santé Québec, the Crown corporation that was set up to run the public system more efficiently. 'It's going form bad to worse,' veteran patient-rights advocate Paul Brunet, executive director of the Conseil pour la protection des malades, told The Gazette. 'It means that some of these patients are likely to end up in the emergency room when their health situation become more aggravated. For some, that's the only way they will be operated on or taken care of by specialists. Meanwhile, the crisis in emergency rooms is still going on. 'The state of health care is degrading,' Brunet added. Health Minister Christian Dubé has focused much of his attention on improving access to family physicians. On that score, there has been some progress, although there are still almost 644,000 Quebecers waiting for a consultation in primary care using the online portal known as the Guichet d'accès à la première ligne (for those who don't have a family doctor) — up from more than 619,000 at the end of 2024. Yet the latest numbers suggest that access to medical specialists may pose an even worse problem. What's more, the Gazette reported last month that some heart patients who have been examined by a specialist are dying on wait lists as Santé Québec and the health ministry squabble over jurisdiction and resources. A record three dozen cardiac patients have died from sudden death while waiting for a life-saving operation since the start of the year. The lengthening of wait times to see a medical specialist is coinciding with an exodus of some specialists from the public system to the private-for-profit sector. For example, more than 108,000 Quebecers were waiting for a consultation with a dermatologist as of May 31. Meanwhile, since last July the number of dermatologists who have opted completely out of the public system has climbed to 49 from 41 . The private-sector dermatologists now represent about one quarter of such specialists practicing in the province. They are charging patients out of pocket an average of $250 per consultation. Another striking example concerns orthopedics, with nearly 60,000 Quebecers waiting (often in pain) for a consultation with a specialist. At present, there are 38 orthopedic surgeons who have opted out of medicare, with about 340 remaining in the public system. Quebec has since adopted legislation to prevent orthopedic surgeons from opting in and out of medicare regularly. But the new regulations are unlikely to have an impact on those who have quit the public system permanently. Audrey Noiseux, Dubé's press attaché, referred The Gazette's queries to Santé Québec. Marianne Paquette, a spokesperson for Santé Québec, said that improving access to specialists remains a priority for the Crown corporation that was established on Dec. 1 last year. 'Although the issues surrounding access to specialists are complex, concrete (solutions) are being actively implemented,' Paquette said in an email. 'These efforts are based on reinforced clinical coordination, process optimization and concerted mobilization of all network players. The common objective remains to improve access to specialized services, with a view to ensuring equity, efficiency and responsiveness to patients' needs, throughout Quebec.'
CTV News
15-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Waitlists for Quebec specialists have nearly one million patients as system struggles to keep up
Quebec's waitlist to see a medical specialist has nearly doubled in five years. The number of Quebecers waiting to see a medical specialist has nearly doubled in the past five years, with more than 900,000 people now on a growing waitlist that health officials admit is spiraling out of control. 'I feel for the patients, mostly. And I think that's what all doctors feel, which is we'd love to see those patients,' said Dr. Rafik Ghali of the Federation of Quebec Medical Specialists. He explained that when a request for a consultation is submitted, the patient's condition is graded by priority. Each grade has a maximum delay before the patient must be seen, which can range from three days to up to a year. Out of the more than 900,000 currently on a waitlist, nearly two-thirds have seen their deadline come and go. 'Those are patients who have minor ailments. You can wait three months or a year. Unfortunately, that usually means you can wait a little longer,' Ghali added. Santé Québec said there are many reasons for the growing waitlist, including an aging population, which means more patients with more complicated cases. Additionally, the agency said there aren't enough specialists available. Ghali noted that with budget cuts and shorter clinic hours, the system is unable to meet the demand. 'We're still seeing a lot of patients. What the medical specialists want to do is see the patients that are there. But it has become untenable,' he said. Paul Brunet, a patient's rights advocate with the Council for the Protection of Patients, said some quick fixes could be put in place now. 'A lot of specialists have gone private, and one of the solutions that apparently works in Ontario is that you fix, by law, the rate — would it be private or public — so that we could use private specialists at the same rate to help us out,' Brunet said.
CTV News
17-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Risk of service disruptions again this summer in Quebec health-care network
The emergency waiting room at The Montreal Children's Hospital on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024 in Montreal. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press) As the summer season begins, Santé Québec has reported that there are 96 'service disruption situations' in the network, 13 of which have yet to be resolved. Historically, the summer season has been synonymous with service disruptions in the healthcare system due to health-care staff taking holidays. Despite this, Santé Québec insists that it is under control and that the 'situation should be relatively stable compared to last year.' 'There will be service reductions, just as there have always been service reductions during the summer period, but this year will be no different from previous years,' assured Santé Québec spokesperson Robin Marie Coleman at a press briefing on Tuesday. It is reported that so far, 80 per cent of the anticipated service disruptions have been avoided. Measures have been put in place to prevent them, including a mobile team for remote regions such as the North Shore, the Outaouais and Abitibi-Témiscamingue. This team, which was set up by the government to compensate for the withdrawal of independent labour, has 246 employees. In addition, Santé Québec indicates that the end or reduction in the use of independent labour in certain regions of Quebec will be an 'additional challenge' this year. It also states that the regions of Mauricie, Centre-du-Québec, Laurentides, Bas-Saint-Laurent and Côte-Nord are 'under surveillance.' Santé Québec was unable to provide the number of beds that will be closed during the summer. Last year, 1,500 beds were closed. This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on June 17, 2025.
Montreal Gazette
17-06-2025
- Health
- Montreal Gazette
Santé Québec, Health Ministry squabble as heart patients die on wait lists
By Aaron Derfel A record three dozen Quebecers have perished from sudden death since the start of the year while waiting for their heart operations, even as the Health Ministry and Santé Québec squabble over jurisdiction and resources, The Gazette can reveal. Despite repeated warnings since last year from the leaders of the provincial associations of cardiologists and cardio-thoracic surgeons about abnormally long wait times for heart operations, no new targeted actions have been taken to address the crisis by either the ministry or Santé Québec. 'We've heard nothing from Santé Québec,' Dr. Bernard Cantin, president of the Association des cardiologues du Québec, said in an interview, alluding to the Crown corporation that was set up on Dec. 1, 2024 to run the province's $65-billion-a-year public health system. 'We've received no news whatsoever.' In April, the association did hold discussions with a representative from Santé Québec, who was 'very open' but who pointed out that 'it's a fight between the ministry and Santé Québec,' Cantin recalled. 'He said it's a very difficult relationship between them. But we're now stuck in the middle of that.' Dr. Louis Perrault, president of the Association des chirurgiens cardio-vasculaires et thoraciques du Québec, agreed that bureaucratic infighting between the health ministry and Santé Québec have made matters worse for heart patients. 'Sadly, the Ministry of Health has stalled the whole thing,' Perrault said. 'We had made recommendations to fix the problem that were supposed to be put in place last June. But by last September, nothing happened. That's when the ministry started talking about, ' Oh, Santé Québec is taking over. So we're not doing anything.'' 'Last December, we wrote a letter of introduction requesting a meeting with (Santé Québec CEO Geneviève) Biron, and it took four months before they answered,' Perrault added. 'We obviously were following up every month. It was complete silence. And then finally in April we got someone on the phone from Santé Québec who is in charge of all of physical health, but it's a mammoth job and he's got no staff. So we had trouble getting answers and nothing is being done.' 'Things are getting worse because they're not organized,' Perrault added of Santé Québec. 'They're understaffed. They're overwhelmed and they don't know what to do, and they have to contend with making $1.5 billion in cuts. So we've seen it in the hospital. The cardiologists don't have access to the same technology. The bean counters tell them they can't do more volume, you have to decrease your volume or you can't have that brand new catheter that performs better.' Marianne Paquette, a spokesperson for Santé Québec, declined to comment about the concerns raised by the two doctors' associations, referring The Gazette instead to the Health Ministry. Meanwhile, an official with the ministry suggested the physicians' dire warnings may be motivated, in part, by their negotiations with the government over remuneration and working conditions. However, The Gazette has verified through the government's own statistics that the problem of lengthy wait times for cardiac patients has grown markedly worse since 2019 — years before the latest round of negotiations. For example, a dozen patients died while waiting for their heart operation during a six-month period in 2019, when cardiac surgeons first sounded the alarm about the problem. That compares with 37 sudden cardiac deaths for the most recent six-month period. What's more, the number of heart patients waiting beyond the medically acceptable delay of 90 days for surgery has increased steadily. On March 31, 2024, the rate was 53.2 per cent. That compares with nearly 62 per cent for the corresponding date this year, for a total of 774 cardiac patients who are now at heightened risk of sudden death. In addition, the number of patients on the wait list for electrophysiology — in order to install a pacemaker for the heart — has surged from about 3,000 three years ago to nearly 5,000 today, with 85 per cent waiting past medically acceptable delays. 'It's a scandal,' Perrault said. 'We're a G7 nation. People are dying on wait lists. This should not be happening.' As Cantin explained: 'In cardiology, we're fighting against sudden death. So depending on the intervention that's needed, it's safe to do it within two months. We know we may lose some people on the wait lists but that impact should be minimal. What's happening now, though, is that with almost two-thirds of patients not getting operated within the allotted time, you just increase the risk of sudden death. And now that's what we're seeing.' The administrative tug-of-war between the Health Ministry and Santé Québec would appear to validate the objections that critics have made about the new organization creating an unnecessary parallel bureaucracy that would only slow down the delivery of medical care. Health Minister Christian Dubé created Santé Québec with the goal of streamlining bureaucracy, entrusting the Crown corporation with negotiating with the unions and running the network on a daily basis, leaving the ministry in charge of so-called strategic planning. Both Cantin and Perrault attributed the lengthy delays for heart surgery to a severe shortage of perfusionists, the technicians who run the heart-and-lung machines. At present, there are 70 for the whole province, and they said Quebec needs 90 for the system to function smoothly. 'I'm director of the perfusionist program at the Université de Montréal and our graduates are leaving for Ontario, for Alberta, for the United States,' Perrault noted. 'Our perfusionists are the lowest-paid in Canada. A lot of people are quitting the profession, taking an early retirement because when the teams are incomplete the work becomes so hard. So much of their work is on call. People don't like the lifestyle.' As a consequence, when a perfusionist is not available, a heart surgeon is left with no choice but to postpone an operation at additional cost to the system. Marie-Claude Lacasse, coordinator of media relations at the Health Ministry, confirmed the government is 'concerned about reports of deaths directly associated with the lack of perfusionists.' 'The (Health Ministry) is aware that the needs are great and that solutions must be found,' Lacasse said in an email. At the same time, however, she disputed that the root problem may be a shortage of perfusionists. 'According to the data ... the unavailability of a perfusionist is the reason given in less than 1 per cent of surgical cancellations,' she added. 'We invite the unions to send us this data so that the appropriate follow-up can be done properly and quickly. Discussions are still underway with the unions representing perfusionists, notably involving the Treasury Board.' Audrey Noiseux, Dubé's press attaché, also appeared to downplay the concerns by the doctors' groups, suggesting this may be a bargaining tactic. 'The information reported is worrying,' she said, adding that 'one thing is clear: we, too, are very concerned about surgical waiting lists.' Still, Noiseux emphasized that 'we are negotiating with the federation of medical specialists, and that discussions are currently underway with the perfusionists' union, so we will remain cautious in our comments. That said, we cannot continue to give more money for the same results. With Santé Québec, we will continue to do everything we can to reduce waiting lists, and everyone has a role to play.'
