By Anne Stairs
Citizens can be forgiven for feeling frustrated about the overall health of the healthcare system.
While we are fortunate to have a truly great little hospital, a dynamic hospital foundation, and dedicated health professionals working alongside engaged citizens and municipal officials to support quality care, access to services remains far from ideal. The creation of the Santé Québec bureaucracy in late 2023 has yet to produce tangible positive results for local services.
Consider the threat last summer to the Brome Lake CLSC, which was closed for several weeks. Consultations between citizens, provincial, and local officials continue. Active in the effort to keep our CLSC open is Lee Patterson (a Town of Brome Lake councillor acting as a private citizen), as well as Mayor Richard Burcombe and his team. Thanks to their efforts, with support from MNA Isabelle Charest, some CLSC services were restored.
The fight for better services continues. The Brome Lake Medical Clinic has three doctors managing 26,000 patient consultations per year. There are also nurse practitioners who can write prescriptions and expedite cases.
“Town of Brome Lake, as a municipality, is not allowed to recruit doctors,” said Mayor Burcombe. “There is no recruitment committee at the local level because graduating doctors have already been sorted by the PREM (plans régionaux d’effectifs médicaux) and receive authorization to work in specific regions. Even when a doctor gets permission to work in our area, it is still largely a negotiation at the provincial level,” Burcombe said. “Keep in mind that this year Bedford and Bromont, which are part of our MRC, are also missing doctors.”
One thing is clear: we need to work together to continue pressuring the provincial government to focus not on inflating bureaucracy but on training a sufficient number of doctors and providing the quality health services our population needs.
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