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Réseau FADOQ and CPM (Conseil pour la protection des malades) are joining forces to demand that political parties, currently campaigning for the provincial election on October 3, 2022, commit to a rapid introduction of comprehensive homecare—including home medical care—for people who need it.

“Quebecers want to grow old in their own homes,” says Réseau FADOQ president Gisèle Tassé-Goodman. “We can’t expect to see a successful transformation of the healthcare system without making a lot of room for home medical care.”

“Home medical care has to be a provincial priority,” says CPM president Paul Brunet. “These last two years have sent us a clear message that Quebec’s hospital-centred system just isn’t up to the job.”

But there is a way we could free up beds and take the pressure off hospitals, and it’s been around for decades—home medical and nursing care. It’s a model that’s been used in the majority of western healthcare systems and has proven its worth.

The population is aging. Time is running short. Quebec needs to start now.

Make room for IHC

Although we recognize that an “overhaul” of the healthcare system will take time, a first step towards expanding home medical care has already been taken.

Round-the-clock intensive homecare (IHC) teams are now making homecare visits in CLSCs, prioritizing patients with severe mobility loss or at the end of their lives. IHC teams give priority to people who need medical care in their last year of life and in palliative care.

“IHC is a proven solution,” says Dr. Geneviève Dechêne, head of IHC at CLSC de Verdun. “It’s been shown to reduce hospitalization in patients who no longer need in-hospital technical support, such as those whose diagnosis is known or for whom an MRI has already been done or can be done on appointment.”

But the agreement between Quebec’s general practitioners’ union (FMOQ) and the Government of Quebec allows patients a maximum of 7 days of medical followup and limits payment to a maximum of 50% of the CLSCs in each region.

Quebec’s next government must renegotiate its agreement with FMOQ to eliminate limits on medical followup and provide proper funding for IHC teams throughout the province.

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