MONTREAL - The four main parties each have a medical doctor running for election, each ready to step up and head the Ministry of Health if elected, and they all faced off in a unique debate Tuesday.
Quebec Solidaire’s sole MNA Amir Khadir said that there’s a problem with the medical hierarchy that snubs the GPs.
“Patients have to come first, not the doctor’s personal interests,” said Khadir.
The PQ’s Dr. Rejean Hebert also argued that the problem is that there’s an insufficient set of resources and incentives to family doctors.
Meanwhile, incumbent Liberal MNA and Health Minister Yves Bolduc said that the solution lies in hiring about 1,000 more doctors.
The CAQ doctor-in-residence Gaetan Barrette said that the solution lies in offering more resources in the system.
The left-leaning Khadir suggested that the CAQ leader Barrette was friendly to some privatization in the health care system, a charge Bolduc repeated.
The PQ representative Hebert shot back by accusing that the Liberals of “asphyxiating the public system to help the private system.”
While it might not be entirely clear that any one of the candidates shined above the others, one of the four will likely be behind the desk of the Health Ministry in a week.
