No sooner had Premier François Legault announced Wednesday that formal talks with the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec had restarted after being torpedoed a month ago by the passage of Bill 2 than word began rippling throughout the small community of Hudson, west of Montreal, that the town’s only medical clinic was closing.

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The news that negotiations are back on should have offered a tiny sliver of hope to family medicine groups (GMFs in French) teetering on the brink. But depending on the pace of discussions — and what, if any, concessions can be wrung from a government that foisted a new remuneration model on doctors with a special law — it may not be enough to prevent the implosion of primary care in Quebec.

More and more clinics could start announcing their plans to close in the coming weeks, lamented Dr. Michael Kalin, a family doctor who also owns Santé Kildare in Côte-St-Luc.

“Clinics will need to give staff and patients eight to 12 weeks’ notice. Time is ticking and there is a countdown,” he said, referring to Bill 2 coming into effect on Jan. 1 and a new contract for GMFs set to be implemented by April 1. “I will take no pleasure in saying to the government ‘I told you so’ because we are all going to suffer.”

For some it’s already too late.

The Hudson Medicentre says it will shut its doors April 1 as a result of the financial and operational straightjacket imposed by Bill 2.

“We are devastated to be forced to close a clinic that has proudly served the population of Hudson and surrounding communities for so many years. We have put our hearts and souls into this clinic, our team, and our patients, and this is not the outcome any of us wanted,” read a notice by Medicentre posted online.

It’s already