{"id":398694,"date":"2025-11-23T07:57:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T07:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/398694\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T07:57:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T07:57:23","slug":"anger-still-simmering-in-western-quebec-over-doctor-pay-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/398694\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger still simmering in western Quebec over doctor pay law"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Outaouais residents rallied against a controversial new Quebec health-care law in Wakefield, Que., on Saturday, with many expressing fears of more doctors leaving their community.<\/p>\n

Bill 2, which is due to take effect in the new year, aims to link remuneration of doctors to performance targets. <\/p>\n

Its unpopularity has led to a surge of Quebec doctors applying to practice in Ontario, something that’s particularly worrying to rural Quebec communities close to the Ottawa River.<\/p>\n

The stated aim of Bill 2 is to help patients get treated faster by incentivizing doctors to meet performance targets. <\/p>\n

While the Quebec government has tried to modify it, that hasn’t mollified either physicians or those who demonstrated Saturday in Wakefield.<\/p>\n

Several hundred people marched to Black Sheep Inn after listening to speeches at the Centre Wakefield La P\u00eache community centre.<\/p>\n

\"ANatasha Grimard, a medical resident in training in Ottawa from Chelsea Que., says Bill 2 is standing in the way of her returning to practice in Quebec. (Campbell MacDiarmid\/CBC)’Like being torn apart’<\/p>\n

Medical resident Natasha Grimard told the crowd that Bill 2 was an obstacle to her returning to practice in Quebec.<\/p>\n

“This bill is making it hard for me to justify coming back, not so much from a remuneration perspective, but from a support perspective,” said Grimard, who grew up in nearby Chelsea and is now training to become a family doctor in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

She said Ontario is doing a better job funding its health-care system.<\/p>\n

“It feels like being torn apart, between this … very deep sense of needing to give back to the community that helped me grow up, and not having the tools here to do that properly,” she said. <\/p>\n

“[But] right across the river I can have those tools, and that makes it a very difficult decision as to where I go next.”<\/p>\n

Retired family doctor Gary Satenstein told the crowd he had watched the health-care system in Quebec decline during his 40 years practising in Wakefield. <\/p>\n

The solution to a doctor shortage is greater investment, he said, not linking remuneration to performance.<\/p>\n

“Coercive policies generally are not good because we already have a very motivated health-care force,” he told CBC. <\/p>\n

“They don’t need motivation. They need resources. They need numbers. They need help.”<\/p>\n

\"AGary Satenstein is a retired family doctor who spoke at Saturday’s protest in Wakefield over Bill 2. (Campbell MacDiarmid\/CBC)’Real crisis’<\/p>\n

The region’s proximity to Ontario means that Marc Carri\u00e8re, the mayor of Les Collines-de-l’Outaouais, is especially worried about health-care workers leaving the community. <\/p>\n

“Here we’re about 15 minutes, 20 minutes from Ottawa. So it’s easy for any doctors, any nurses to go across the river and go work in Ottawa,” he said. <\/p>\n

Protest organizer Sharyn Morris said most people in Wakefield already do not have a family doctor, making her especially worried about Bill 2. <\/p>\n

“A lot of our doctors have already left and it’s a real crisis right now,” she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“We already are suffering in our medical system. And to be honest, I’m really scared of the outcome.”<\/p>\n

\"ASharyn Morris, who helped organize Saturday’s demonstration over Bill 2, says many doctors have already left the region. (Campbell MacDiarmid\/CBC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":398695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-398694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115597951031136975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}