Letter To The Editor: Keeping Doctors Away

What follows in italics is a letter to the editor I plucked from the newspaper.

It used to be an apple a day kept the doctor away. Now it's a little more complicated.

Things are not good nor acceptable in Quebec. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Part of the reason why private health care is on the rise is because there's a demand for it. People are not interested in playing roulette with their lives as they wait for timely service. Rather than wait for the government to make things better they are taking matters into their own hands. It's only going to continue...

"There has been a lot of talk during this provincial election campaign about the state of the health-care system, particularly the lack of family physicians in Montreal and the province. My wife, a family doctor who has been in practice more than 20 years, has felt the effects of the policies of successive PQ and Liberal governments. She has been training promising young doctors only to see them leave the province once their training is done because of low salaries and draconian restrictions on where they can work.

We had high hopes that the Charest government, which originally campaigned on fixing health care and education, would make more money available and lift the restrictions on doctors. It has not happened. Now, after years of working in a hospital unit with resources stretched beyond the limit, high stress levels and incompetent management, she herself has left the province.

I will join her in Toronto next year, where her pay is significantly higher, taxes are lower, and the system is more functional. We are leaving our long-time home, and Quebec and Montreal have lost another experienced family clinician and educator. That will definitely be on my mind as I cast my ballot in my last Quebec election."

D.G.