Caroline Plante, The Canadian Press
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QUEBEC — The Legault government is committed to following up on the Savoie report by hiring “hundreds” of middle managers in the health network.
The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, made the announcement on Wednesday, at a press briefing at the National Assembly, saying he wanted to make a “significant decentralization effort”.
In the past, François Legault’s Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) had promised to slim down the state and abolish 20,000 jobs (in 2014) and 5,000 jobs (in 2018).
Minister Dubé now says he is “very comfortable” with the planned hiring of “100, 200” additional executives. It devotes recurring $40 million to “proximity management”.
“There is a process in business (…) called continuous improvement. Me, I’m in there. I take a situation that has gone to B or C, then I tell myself what I can do to improve it,” he said.
When presenting his health plan last March, Mr. Dubé had asked his deputy minister, Dominique Savoie, to make a diagnosis of the organization and governance of the system.
The latter said that the Barrette reform – which led to the departure of around 1,300 executives – allowed certain “advances”, while generating “difficulties”.
Some problems have even been accentuated in the context of a pandemic: for example, “the heaviness in terms of governance does not favor a rapid response on the ground”, she underlined.
Depoliticize health?
Moreover, the report tabled on Wednesday and entitled “Renewed governance of the health and social services network” invites the government to reflect on the possibility of depoliticizing health.
Ms. Savoie proposes in particular to create a “formal instance of coordination and supervision to optimize access to care (…) and improve its fluidity”.
The objective would be, among other things, to “provide specific coordination for the greater Montreal area (514-450) in order to promote the fluidity and continuity of care”.
In addition, “we believe it is essential that the government think about a larger-scale review of the current levels of management by creating a new entity,” writes Ms. Savoie.
Certain responsibilities of the Ministry of Health and the network could be transferred there, as the Clair report recommended in 2001.
He asked if “the ministerial structure as we know it was still adapted to the current context to act as the main instrument of governance in terms of overall administration of the service offer”.
The new entity imagined by Ms. Savoie would be “neutral, fully accountable, very operational, oriented towards results and user satisfaction”.
In a press briefing, Mr. Dubé indicated that he would take the time to analyze this part of the report.
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