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Quebec\u2019s family doctors have voted overwhelmingly in favour of an agreement that will incentivize them to take on an additional 500,000 patients by next June.<\/p>\n
The vote on Friday comes after a lengthy negotiation between the doctors and the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec goverment, who had pushed through controversial legislation, known as Bill 2, that would have, among other things, tied part of doctors\u2019 pay to performance indicators.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The law sparked backlash from doctors with many family physicians and clinics threatening to close entirely if the legislation was not amended.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault stepped in to negotiate with the doctor\u2019s union, reaching a tentative agreement that rolled back many of the major measures in Bill 2.<\/p>\n
The new deal eliminated a contentious plan to assign patients on a colour-coded system based on their level of vulnerability, and removed all articles in the legislation that would have penalized doctors for not following the reforms.<\/p>\n
The deal also removed the obligation for family doctor groups, known in French as GMFs, to take on the province\u2019s estimated 1.2 million orphaned patients by January 2027. Instead, the deal says the doctors will take on 500,000 new patients by June, on a voluntary basis, and will receive more money if that goal is reached, but won’t face penalties if those goals aren’t reached. <\/p>\n
Deal is a ‘win-win,’ minister says<\/p>\n
France-\u00c9laine Duranceau, Quebec\u2019s treasury board president, hailed the deal as a \u201cwin-win\u201d agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have 500,000 more Quebecers who will be taken in by GPs. That\u2019s good news,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Duranceau said 200,000 of those 500,000 patients are slated as \u201cvulnerable people\u201d who tend to have to go to emergency rooms to receive care. <\/p>\n
The union that represents family doctors, the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration des m\u00e9decins omnipraticiens du Qu\u00e9bec (FMOQ), said in a statement that the agreement is a \u201cclear commitment to transforming frontline care.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong other things, the agreement will change the remuneration model, improve funding for telemedicine, and stabilize clinics that depend on the GMF program,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamily physicians will be able to continue practicing high-quality family medicine and focus on what they do best: caring for patients in Quebec.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Dub\u00e9, Quebec’s long-serving health minister, resigned on Thursday, saying the government backtracked on too many of Bill 2’s measures. He said the current deal is more of the “status quo.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-192004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}