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A family medicine clinic in Hudson, Quebec, west of Montreal, will close due to the implementation of Quebec's controversial Bill 2.
Hudson Medical Center serves about 11,000 mostly English-speaking patients, said Dr. Tara McCarthy, a family physician at the clinic and one of its co-owners.
This is the only bilingual GMF – French abbreviation for a group of family doctors – in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region, she says.
McCarthy said Wednesday the clinic will be forced to close April 1 after three of the seven doctors practicing there decided to leave the province in response to new legislation.
“It’s a pretty devastating situation at our clinic, and I’m sure it’s at many others,” McCarthy said, adding that the law forces doctors to provide “unsafe care to our patients.”
“We'll be told what to see, who to see, when to see them, how often to see them, how quickly to see them. And not only is that dangerous, but it's not how we practice in our clinic,” McCarthy said.
Proposition 2, effective October 25, ties doctors' salaries to key performance indicators, including the number of patients served and their vulnerability.
Federations in Quebec representing medical professionals, family doctors and medical students, as well as an association representing pharmacy owners, have filed lawsuits against the law, with many saying it will negatively impact patient care.
Lego and family doctors resume negotiations
On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister François Legault and Dr. Marc-André Amiot, President Federation of General Practitioners of Quebec (FMOQ) announced that the parties would “immediately resume formal discussions.”
“If an agreement is reached, the government will accept the amendments to Bill 2, knowing that part of the compensation for family doctors will continue to depend on hiring more Quebecers,” the statement said.
The joint statement was released before the clinic's closure became public knowledge.
When asked whether resuming negotiations would affect the clinic's closure, McCarthy told CBC that nothing short of suspending the law would be enough.
In a statement released Wednesday, Hudson Medical Center said that over the next few weeks, each patient will receive a separate message directly from their family physician indicating whether they will continue to practice and next steps.
“Every doctor in [GMF] “will make their individual decision, the one that is most suitable for them and their family in the current situation,” the statement said, urging patients to refrain from asking questions at the appointment about their doctor's future plans.
Patient Christy Lovat said the center has treated four generations of her family, including herself and two children.
She called the closure “devastating to the entire community.”
“We don’t have a hospital here,” she said, noting that the center is “the only place where we can get medical care.”
“I don’t understand how they could pass on something so obviously destructive to medicine. It's almost as if they intended to cause serious harm to public health in Quebec. Honestly, it's amazing.”
