The change would come with guardrails to ensure doctors spend a minimum amount of time working in public health care, Fr\u00e9chette said.<\/p>\n
The CAQ\u2019s opponents were quick to accuse Fr\u00e9chette of a flip-flop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s improvisation and it\u2019s above all a contradiction of what the CAQ itself did under Christian Dub\u00e9,\u201d Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said at a campaign stop in Sherbrooke, telling reporters the PQ would keep the current policy in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce again, Ms. Fr\u00e9chette is throwing another of her former colleagues under the campaign bus,\u201d Quebec Liberal Leader Charles Milliard said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe first to get a taste was Fran\u00e7ois Legault. The second was Pierre Fitzgibbon,\u201d he said, referencing the former economy minister who presided over Quebec\u2019s fraught investments in battery plant startups<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis morning it\u2019s Christian Dub\u00e9,\u201d Milliard said.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, the private system has a role to play\u201d in health care, Milliard said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t come into politics to abdicate on the quality of the public system.\u201d<\/p>\n Still on the theme of private health-care expansion, Fr\u00e9chette also said she would expand the scenarios in which the government funds private-sector services.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to increase the use of the private sector to reduce wait times,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Under the CAQ\u2019s plan, the province would pick up the bill at private clinics for patients who waited more than nine months to receive a surgery in a public clinic or hospital. Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec has already started rolling out a program to fund private-sector surgeries, but it currently imposes a 12-month wait time before patients can turn to private care.<\/p>\n Fr\u00e9chette also said the province would pay for an additional 100,000 private-sector imaging exams.<\/p>\n Along with plans for private medicine, Fr\u00e9chette said she would expand the services nurses and paramedics can provide and train more medical students in the regions.<\/p>\n Fr\u00e9chette faced a series of questions about Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec, the CAQ-created agency tasked with managing Quebec\u2019s sprawling health-care network. Le Journal de Montr\u00e9al reported Monday<\/a> that the agency had spent more than $465 million on IT contracts since 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m angry to see that there were cost overruns. I also want to see that it stops,\u201d Fr\u00e9chette said, telling reporters that new contract rules should reduce overruns in the future.<\/p>\n St-Pierre Plamondon said Fr\u00e9chette was dodging accountability, comparing the report to the $1.1-billion SAAQclic scandal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the same people, the same behaviour \u2026 the same situation where we waste hundreds of millions and nobody is responsible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, which was in first place in a poll released Monday<\/a>, has promised to scrap Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec<\/a>, with St-Pierre Plamondon arguing that abolishing the \u201cbureaucratic monster\u201d would free up at least $40 million to invest in public services.<\/p>\n St-Pierre Plamondon returned to the topic Monday in an announcement that took aim at the broader civil service. The PQ leader accused the CAQ of \u201closing control of the bureaucracy\u201d by adding thousands of administrative positions.<\/p>\n Sonia B\u00e9langer, the CAQ health minister and candidate for Pr\u00e9vost, defended Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec but told reporters in St-Colomban that she has \u201cspecific expectations for Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec regarding the reduction of administrative jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n Fr\u00e9chette said she wasn\u2019t interested in \u201cdebating structure,\u201d arguing that Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec is saving money and reducing wait times.<\/p>\n jawilson@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n
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