Healthcare & Social Services

Highlights of the Health and Social Services policy for Quebec’s English-speaking population:

1. 1. Privatisation undermines English Healthcare Rights: Eliminate to the furthest extent possible the contracting out of healthcare services to private concerns, as a means of improving accessibility guarantees and health outcomes. Furthermore, enshrine in the Act respecting health services and social services the stipulation that all private providers of HSS enter into binding legal contracts with public institutions that guarantee that their services will be available in English.
2. 2. Communication: Ensure that certain core publicly-funded health and social services, where language is a key component in ensuring a successful clinical intervention, are offered in English for all persons who are more comfortable to receive these services in English throughout Quebec.

Ensure that all written information provided by the HSS network be provided in English for those persons who request it, as well as in French to all Quebecers.

3. 3. Funding: The Canada Health Transfer and Canada Social Transfer to Quebec should be raised from 22% to 35% of the overall HSS budget (approximately $6.5 to $7 billion annually), if and only if the Government of Quebec satisfies and fulfills all accessibility and patient-physician communication requirements as stipulated in its own legislation, and, where relevant, the Canada Health Act.

Ensure equitable funding from the Government of Quebec for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), i.e., Programme de soutien aux organismes communautaires (PSOC) funds, in healthcare serving ESCQ clientele through the revision of PSOC funds criteria, followed by a prioritization of new dollars in this program to ensure a similar range and intensity of community health and social services offered to francophones.

4. 4. English-speaking Quebecers Deemed ‘At Risk’ Clientele: Ensure that English-speaking Quebecers, who are classified by the MSSS within one of the ‘at-risk’ target clienteles requiring additional specific services, receive the full range of health services and social services in their respective continuum of care, as well as the necessary primary care services, in English.

5. 5. Quality-of-Care Principles: The Party has been calling for the repeal of Bill 96 in its entirety since its formation, and continues to do so as of this writing. In the interim, it calls on the Government of Quebec to remove all articles in Bill 96 that reference HSS, so that any and all uncertainty concerning the application of Article 15 of the Act respecting health services and social services for all 1.25 million English-speaking Quebecers be removed.

1. 6. Definition of English-speaker: Maintain the following definition of an English-speaking person when it comes to the delivery of health and social services: “a person who, in his relations with an institution that provides health and social services, feels more comfortable expressing his needs and receiving services in English”.