Coalition Avenir Québec Leader Christine Fréchette’s plan to expand private medicine risks weakening the public system and lengthening wait times for patients, a Université de Montréal health care researcher says.
Pitched toward the start of the election campaign, Fréchette’s proposal would allow doctors to operate a private clinic while still working in the public system, reversing a guardrail brought in by her own party in an attempt to keep doctors in public practice.
The plan would also see the province pay for more private-sector surgeries, picking up the bill at private clinics for patients who wait more than nine months for an operation on the public side.