Santé Québec transformation or abolition confusion, Digi Mart USA News (Quebec City, Quebec): Quebec’s government of Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon may be backing away from its promise to abolish the health agency Santé Québec. Health Minister Marie-Karlynn Laflamme said Wednesday morning that the agency would now be “transformed.”
Later the same day, she clarified on social media that the government had no intention of backing away from the Parti Québécois promise to abolish the agency. She wrote on X that the structure is too heavy and centralized and would be abolished, calling this an important transformation.
During the campaign, the government said it would keep certain positive elements of Santé Québec, such as revising how each region is funded for health care, achieving economies of scale in some sectors, and measuring the management performance of each institution. Laflamme said this is the sense in which she speaks of a transformation.
In an interview with Radio-Canada on Wednesday, Laflamme said the government does not want to destabilize the network with a new major reform. She said the aim is to adapt Santé Québec while keeping what works and moving toward some decentralization.
Her current task is to determine which decisions should go back to field teams to improve access to care, which she described as the weak point of the network.
Liberal leader Charles Milliard said the situation does not serve Quebecers. Québec solidaire spokesperson Ruba Ghazal said she was pleased the Parti Québécois had apparently listened and no longer proposed a structural reform.
Conservative leader Éric Duhaime criticized the government’s position, saying it was off to a poor start and asking what “transformation” would mean.
Information from Pierre-Alexandre Bolduc and La Presse canadienne was used in this report. The publisher article was not independently verified.
