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The Quebec government has temporarily shelved its plan to transfer organ and tissue donation responsibilities from Transplant Qu\u00e9bec to H\u00e9ma-Qu\u00e9bec.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During a parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday, Treasury Board President France-\u00c9laine Duranceau tabled amendments to Bill 7 that will allow both entities to continue pursuing their respective missions independently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal was not to drive away Transplant Qu\u00e9bec staff. To put everyone at ease, we are postponing this,\u201d Duranceau said during the committee meeting.<\/p>\n
Introduced in November 2025, Bill 7 aimed to save the province $35 million by eliminating 220 full-time positions, including about 100 within the health-care system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Duranceau argued the merger would improve state efficiency, public health experts criticized the proposal, fearing it would destabilize the specialized co-ordination of organ and tissue donations.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Duranceau said discussions between the two organizations had been “heated” and described Transplant Qu\u00e9bec as having “no appetite or openness” to collaborate.<\/p>\n
\u201cH\u00e9ma-Qu\u00e9bec was very proactive and proposed several avenues, whereas Transplant Qu\u00e9bec was rather hesitant,\u201d Duranceau noted, adding that she had met with leaders from both organizations before deciding to walk back the merger.<\/p>\n
In a statement to Radio-Canada Thursday, Transplant Qu\u00e9bec welcomed the minister’s decision to shelve the plan, adding the organization has worked to keep transplants safe and focused on patients’ needs for more than 55 years. <\/p>\n
“Transplant Qu\u00e9bec acted as a responsible and committed partner throughout the entire process,” Transplant Qu\u00e9bec president Martine Bouchard said in the statement. “It remains essential that the minister recognize this contribution and allow for an open and constructive dialogue on the future of this vital sector.” <\/p>\n
Liberal MNA Andr\u00e9 Fortin, leader of the Official Opposition, meanwhile, challenged Duranceau\u2019s portrayal of the agency as unco-operative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He questioned how the original plan would have improved the efficiency of organ donations and defended Transplant Qu\u00e9bec.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot \u2026 ask an organization that basically thinks it will be abolished not to feel burned,\u201d Fortin said during the committee meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-486479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}