An Outaouais health care lobby group wants the Quebec government to establish a medical school in Gatineau it hopes will address the shortage of hundreds of doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapists and medical technicians in West Quebec.
Outaouais à l'urgence phase 2 wants a satellite campus of McGill University's Faculty of Medicine to admit 24 medical students a year and hopes that the university will eventually train other health care workers who would remain in the Outaouais because they have families there.
The Quebec Ministry of Health has tried for years to recruit doctors, nurses and technicians to hospitals in the Outaouais, but most return to the regions they came from within a few years or move to Ontario where salaries are higher.
Health care shortages are so critical that the Hull campus of the Centre Hospitalier des Vallées de l'Outaouais could not provide surgical treatment on a weekend in September to a Sûreté du Québec officer who died after a motorcycle crash on Highway 366 in Val-des-Monts.
Const. Jean-Philippe Rochon, 23, of Gracefield, was transported to the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital where he died.
Outaouais à l'urgence has obtained 40,000 signatures on a petition asking the Quebec government to give the Outaouais the same level of health care available in other parts of the province. Outaouais residents can download the petition at www.oauphase2.org.
Dr. Gilles Aubé, a Gatineau emergency room physician who is also a member of the group, said the best permanent solution to the shortage of health care workers is to train people in Gatineau.
"We have shortages of specialists in all fields and are obliged to recruit them from other regions," Dr. Aubé said. "If there was a medical school in the Outaouais, it would be an advantage for the region.
"McGill could establish a medical school in our region because it is responsible for training doctors in our region. Physicians in the Outaouais are already enthusiastic about the idea."
Dr. Aubé said the Outaouais needs 84 family doctors, 242 specialists, 152 pharmacists, 53 physiotherapists, 46 nutritionists and dozens of radiologists, laboratory technicians and respiratory therapists.
Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard in May 2007 promised to deal with Gatineau's emergency room crisis and shortages of medical specialists such as orthopedic surgeons.
Mr. Couillard's staff said at the time that the minister recognizes there are troubles with health care in the Outaouais. The Quebec government has increased health spending in the region by $90 million since 2003 because it is considered a "frontier region" that loses health care workers to Ontario.
Dr. Aubé said the Outaouais could keep 75 per cent of the medical staff trained in the region. Group spokesman Claude Sirois the turnover rate among health care workers is high because many recruits want to return home and find Ottawa-Gatineau boring.
McGill officials were not available yesterday to comment on the proposal. "We had some informal talks with McGill and they told us that there is great interest in the project," Dr. Aubé said. "The people at McGill told us to follow the official paths and get some formal talks going.
"The University of Montreal did that for Trois Rivières and Sherbrooke provided a medical school in Chicoutimi. Why doesn't McGill take advantage of projects that have been done in the past and do something similar in the Outaouais?"
Marthe Robitaille, a spokeswoman for Outaouais à l'urgence, said Benoît Pelletier, the provincial cabinet minister responsible for the Outaouais, suggested the group produce a list of recommendations to improve health care.
Ms. Robitaille said health care workers should be trained in the Outaouais because health care and education are provincial responsibilities. She said the University of Ottawa will need to train doctors for Ottawa because many physicians in the city will soon retire.
Adina Rachiteanu, a spokeswoman for the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine, said a limited number of Outaouais residents are allowed to enrol each year because the university is intended primarily for Ontario students.
Ms. Robitaille said classes could be at the Université du Québec en Outaouais but the group has not suggested a site for the proposed medical school because it is presenting its "vision" of better health care.
"This could go very fast if the political will is there," Ms. Robitaille said. "But it takes about 10 years to train a doctor so in the meantime we would have to recruit doctors from other parts of Quebec."
