With the Parti Québécois (PQ) having just been elected, the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS) is urging the party to “invest massively” in prevention and primary care.
The research institute calculated that, during the election campaign, the PQ promised to allocate an additional $500 million per year to these sectors. IRIS believes, however, that 13 times that amount—$6.8 billion per year—should be invested instead.
The left-leaning research institute asserts, however, that these “investments could be offset by significant savings in secondary and tertiary care.” The net cost of these investments is therefore estimated at $1.5 billion per year.
“We must invest heavily now to substantially improve access to care, the population’s health, and ultimately generate savings,” explains IRIS researcher and study author Anne Plourde in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Health care is the largest budget item in Quebec, with more than $60 billion allocated for 2024–2025.
Can we afford to increase health care spending even further? According to Plourde, we are “investing poorly in health care,” which is why we are not seeing improved access for the population.
“We’ve known for decades that our system is far too focused on hospitals and on specialized and highly specialized second- and third-line services, which are very costly. That’s where the vast majority of health care investments go, and it’s not where investing is most effective,” explains the researcher.
“Generally speaking, it’s considered that primary care should meet 80 per cent of the population’s needs. Currently, three-quarters of the funds invested in health and social services are allocated to secondary and tertiary care,” she adds.
IRIS also proposes to “triple the number of healthcare staff in CLSCs” and to transfer “a significant portion” of the approximately 200,000 healthcare workers currently in the private sector to the public sector.
The PQ has also promised to replace Santé Québec with an agency. Although critical of the creation of Santé Québec, IRIS states that this is not currently a priority issue.
“It won’t make much of a difference for the public’s access to services,” says Plourde.
The IRIS study indicates that “there is currently no official data on the total amounts or the share of expenditures allocated to front-line care in Quebec, nor on the number or proportion of the network’s workforce employed in front-line care.”
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
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