Quebec's health minister says he is delivering on a promise to re-invest in health care.
Gaetan Barrette is injecting $36 million to increase the number of baths for all long-term care residents to two a week.
Patients currently receive one bath a week.
“What we are doing today is offering the capacity of an additional bath to everybody, knowing that some will not have it because of clinical conditions and therefore there are additional baths to others. Maybe some will have a third one, some will have a fourth one. It's a balance - a balance that the administration will have to appraise in a way. At the end of the day, it's added services,” said Barrette.
Patients rights’ advocate Paul Brunet said he welcomes the news, but said it’s a drop in the bucket.
“It’s good news of course, but this is not a promise from the minister, this is a claim that we’ve been launching for the past ten years,” he said. “When we heard about this non-written rule about the one bath (per week) ten years ago, we started the claim that people should be able when they want, when they can have it, to have another bath or shower.”
“The number of services has diminished with years and with time and now it is a re-introduction of certain parts of quality of services that we’ve been claiming,” he said, adding that there are many immediate needs for long-term care patients.
“We welcome it, but it’s one of at least ten other claims we’ve been making for the past couple of years concerning long-term facilities. This is one drop, yes, but one good thing. Let’s hope that other things will come up.”
