Five months after the first superclinic opened in Montreal, three more were inaugurated Monday in Montreal.
Health Minister Gaetan Barrette announced that three existing medical facilities, GMF Forcemedic, GMF Papineau CLSC Villeray, and GMF Saint Laurent, have now changed to the superclinic format.
That means there are now six locations in Montreal that will see at least 20,000 patients per year, be open 12 hours a day, and patients will eventually be able to get X-rays or similar services on the spot.
The idea is that instead of going to hospital emergency rooms for non-urgent or non-critical care, patients will go to superclinics instead.
The first superclinic opened in St. Laurent in November, and Barette hopes that eventually 50 such superclinics will open around the province.
This comes the week after the province announced a pilot project for booking appointments with family doctors online.
Meanwhile the Coalition Avenir Quebec says the Liberal government is failing when it comes to providing Quebecers with family doctors.
Francois Legault said that half a million Quebecers do not have a family doctor, and that the waiting list is more than a year long.
"The only difference is there are 500,000 people that are on a list but we got some documents from the Ministry of Healthcare confirming that the average waiting time for these people is 400 days," said Legault.
Barrette said Monday that Legault is misinterpreting the numbers.
"He's an accountant. He's supposed to know how to read texts and count but instead he says we didn't meet our goals. The goal is at the end of the process," said Barrette.
Last year the provincial government set up an online registry for people to connect with family doctors.
