The Coalition avenir Québec proposes splitting the structure of the Department of Health and Human Services into two parts, creating an agency responsible for on-site operations. One way, the party promises, is to make the system “more efficient and humane.”
Minister Christian Dubé therefore proposes entrusting this future “health agency” with the day-to-day monitoring of the network’s activities, so that the ministry can focus on guidance, evaluation and budgeting.
“We want to make sure there’s less bureaucracy and less intervention by the ministry,” he said Wednesday in a pre-election announcement at a Quebec hotel. “More human. More efficient,” said a poster in front of him.
We want fewer decisions in office towers and more decisions in the field
Such a system, Mr Dubé promises, would allow the network to be decentralized and facilitate the implementation of the health plan he unveiled earlier this year. “We want fewer decisions in office towers and more decisions on the ground,” he said.
The structure of the Integrated Centers for Health and Social Services (CISSS) would not be affected by such a reform. However, if the reform is implemented, the CISSSs will have to report to this new agency.
Fewer deputy ministers in sight
The Legault government was embarrassed last March when the Journal de Québec revealed that the health ministry now has sixteen deputy ministers (one deputy minister and fifteen deputy deputy ministers), six more than “four years ago”.
Christian Dubé assures that the creation of an agency would make it possible to reduce the number of deputy directors in his department. Those whose mission is more operational would be transferred there and would enjoy a different executive status. However, Mr Dubé does not expect any savings from the gesture.
The minister made no secret of it: this reorganization is aimed in particular at facilitating the task of Deputy Minister Dominique Savoie, who reports to the 15 Deputy Deputy Ministers and all the CEOs of the CISSS. It was Ms. Savoie who, in a report presented last June, suggested to Christian Dubé that the department be reorganized in this way.
criticized priorities
The other factions greeted this plan with skepticism. “Another CAQ plan that misses the real problem: caregivers leaving the network and not wanting to come back,” responded Quebec Solidaire health spokesman Vincent Marissal. “There are solutions – for example, the abolition of forced overtime and the end of recruitment agencies in the health sector – but the CAQ does not have the courage. »
Likewise, Liberals mocked Wednesday’s announcement. “What we see today is that for the CAQ, the absolute priority in health is to review the department’s organizational chart,” noted in social networks the holder of the file at the PLQ, Monsef Derraji.
The PQ recalled that the CAQ failed to deliver on its earlier promise to reduce the time to access a doctor in the emergency room to 90 minutes. “Is it possible to check before making a new health commitment that the one made at the last election was carried out by the CAQ? asked MP Pascal Bérubé on twitter.
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