Months after trying to forcibly assign family physicians to all Quebec patients under the coercive but now defunct Bill 2, the government says that doctor-centred model of care “no longer responds adequately to the growing needs of the population.”

Even with a “blitz” underway to sign up 500,000 orphan patients by the end of June, including a goal of registering 180,000 in March deemed vulnerable, Quebec is now poised to move in a different direction.

Under the new policy unveiled by Health Minister Sonia Bélanger last week, Quebec will no longer seek to match patients with a family physician. Instead, the local CLSC will be the first point of access, AI will help triage appointments, patients will be assigned to a multidisciplinary milieu and a “professional” — who may or may not be a doctor — will coordinate their care.

The devil is in the details of the Politique gouvernementale sur les soins et services de première ligne.

A deep read of the 95-page document shows that the CAQ government is abandoning the doctor-centred ideal that has been the foundation of primary care and preventive medicine for decades. 

“In Quebec, health care and services have historically been developed around family doctors,” the policy reads. “The current model of registration to a single professional no longer responds adequately to the growing needs of the population and puts significant pressure on family doctors to increase the volume of registered patients or the rhythm of their consultations. This model has not succeeded in meeting the needs of the entire Quebec population, creating inequity and leaving a significant number of people without adequate access to........

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