After at least three private endoscopy clinics confirmed they plan to close in the new year, many are now raising concerns they feel waiting lists are already too long.
CTV Montreal reported Monday that at least three private clinics performing thousands of colonoscopies and gastroscopies every year in Montreal are planning to close due to the province’s plan to scrap accessory fees.
A fourth clinic on Cote-des-Neiges Rd. has now also confirmed it will close at Christmas if no solution is found.
Quebec Health Minister Gaetan Barrette has decided that doctors in these private clinics will no longer be allowed to charge patients for expenses such as rent, staff and equipment.
For many, this means the clinics would no longer be able to operate.
Hospital wait times for endoscopies are already long, and doctors say the system can't handle the addition of thousands of patients from the private clinics.
They say cancer diagnoses and treatments will be delayed.
The Canadian Colorectal Cancer Association submitted its concerns and suggestions to Barrette last month.
“The first suggestion is of course to put more money into the public system, open up the colonoscopy suites that exist,” said Barry Stein, president of the association.
Private clinics offer an alternative, however, said Stein.
“These clinics are ongoing and ready to serve in Montreal. Why shut them down? What we can imagine, for example, is to provide a technical fee or a composite technique in order to assist these clinics with their overhead,” he said.
Barrette would only say doctors are not being forced to close their private clinics.
“Until today, they were billing what? $500, $600 to the patient and they were dipping in the RAMQ for $125, $150? They can add that up and go private and it's not an issue, so why is it that they're not doing that?” he said.
There needs to be more investment in hospitals, said Diane Lamarre, who serves as the PQ's health critic.
“If the health minister has money to give to super clinics, if he can invest money outside the hospitals, why doesn't he invest this money inside the hospital?” she said.
