a public inquiry.<\/a><\/p>\n“We have to ensure the sound management of public finances,”\u00a0Genevi\u00e8ve Biron, head of Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec, said in an interview Friday morning with Radio-Canada’s Tout un matin.<\/p>\n
The project being suspended is known as the\u00a0Syst\u00e8me d’information des finances et de l’approvisionnement\u00a0(SIFA), a system meant to take\u00a0over supply management and payroll in the health-care system.<\/p>\n
In the interview, Biron explained that the project\u00a0would have gone\u00a0significantly over budget had they moved forward with it, so it’s temporarily suspended as they wait for authorization to increase the budget.<\/p>\n
“We don’t want to find ourselves in a situation of cost overruns,” she\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
A second project,\u00a0Dossier sant\u00e9 num\u00e9rique\u00a0(DSN), which would have centralized patients’ files on an online platform, has been postponed.<\/p>\n
In a statement published on the social media platform X on Thursday, Sant\u00e9-Qu\u00e9bec\u00a0wrote that\u00a0the decision to put the brakes on both projects was necessary because there are “conditions that aren’t being met,” and the agency doesn’t feel the website will be ready to launch as expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was supposed to be tested\u00a0in health-care facilities in\u00a0the Mauricie and in Montreal starting Nov. 29.<\/p>\n
Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec took over both of the projects last year. According to Radio-Canada, they are now estimated to cost nearly\u00a0$700 million\u00a0\u2014 double what was planned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Autorit\u00e9 des march\u00e9s publics,\u00a0a provincial\u00a0agency that oversees public contracts, has also been keeping an eye on the digital projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to an internal memo obtained by Radio-Canada, Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec\u00a0suspended SIFA\u00a0following recommendations from the agency and a committee overseeing the management of the project.<\/p>\n
WATCH\u00a0| Learn more about Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec and what it does:\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759529109_867_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
New Crown corporation aims to improve Quebec’s struggling health-care system<\/p>\n
Starting Dec. 1, Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec will manage all health-care establishments in the province. The newly-created Crown corporation is a crucial part of the Legault government\u2019s solutions to reform the health-care system.<\/p>\n
That committee is made up of staff\u00a0from Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec\u00a0and the Cybersecurity\u00a0Ministry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec had requested an additional $94 million for SIFA but has not yet gotten authorization.\u00a0The\u00a0government allowed the agency to spend an additional $95\u00a0million on the DSN.<\/p>\n
Biron maintains the projects would save the province more than $1 billion in the long run.<\/p>\n
‘No alarm bells,’ minister says<\/p>\n
Opposition parties are calling for an official hearing at the National Assembly, looking\u00a0into the digital transition in the health-care system. They accuse\u00a0the Quebec government of lacking transparency.<\/p>\n
Just hours before Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec announced its decision to put the projects on hold, two Quebec cabinet ministers insisted the digital transition was going well\u00a0when faced with questions from the opposition at the legislature.<\/p>\n
“We have no alarm bells at this point,” Cybersecurity Minister Gilles B\u00e9langer\u00a0said during Thursday’s question period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We are confident we can complete these projects on budget.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Health Minister Christian Dub\u00e9 added the transition is in good hands under Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec, and the only issue they are dealing with, he said, is that doctors are refusing to take part in the pilot project.<\/p>\n
WATCH\u00a0| Who’s to blame for SAAQClic fallout?:\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759529109_332_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Why the \u2018radioactive\u2019 man at the centre of Quebec\u2019s SAAQclic fiasco doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s to blame<\/p>\n
While the inquiry into the bungled and massively over-budget rollout of a digital platform for the province\u2019s auto insurance board has heard from the premier and the ministers responsible, the most important witness may have been someone few have ever heard of. <\/p>\n
“We should not be worrying people\u00a0when there is no valid reason to do so,” he said.<\/p>\n
After Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec announced the suspension of the project, Dub\u00e9 called it a responsible decision “in a context where the conditions for the two projects’ success aren’t currently [there].”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The government has not yet responded to the calls for a hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Criticism mounts<\/p>\n
The opposition said the situation appears to be a repeat of what happened with SAAQclic.<\/p>\n
“We have, at the government, amateur ministers who did not know this morning what was going on \u2014 at all,” said Liberal\u00a0health critic Marc Tanguay.<\/p>\n
“Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec is the dark side of the moon. We want to find out what’s going on.”<\/p>\n
Vincent Marissal, health critic for Qu\u00e9bec\u00a0Solidaire, also accused the government of waiting until the last minute before backtracking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The CAQ always has to hit a wall before it takes action,” he said in a statement. “We’re watching the complete dissolution of the government’s credibility.”<\/p>\n
The Parti\u00a0Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, meanwhile, is calling on the province’s auditor general to do a complete audit of the DSN and SIFA\u00a0projects.<\/p>\n
Quebec’s largest nurses’ union, the\u00a0F\u00e9d\u00e9ration\u00a0interprofessionnelle de la sant\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec (FIQ),\u00a0feels the digital transition is a waste of taxpayers’ money at this point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The union is asking that the funding\u00a0set aside for the projects\u00a0be reallocated directly to patients’ care and better working conditions for nurses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0FSSS-CSN, another union representing health-care workers, also said the government failed to account for the personnel and hours needed to train staff on the new digital platforms when determining the budget for the pilot projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec, the less-than-year-old Crown corporation that oversees the province’s health-care network,\u00a0has now postponed one of its digital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-54117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}