Regional health coalition presses National Assembly for immediate action

Taylor Clark

As Outaouais grapples with a “very scary time” for its health-care system, a regional coalition is demanding the National Assembly of Québec rectify what it stated was decades of neglect and underfunding, leaving the regional health-care network to crumble.

“I think it’s fairly simple when we look at the state of where we are. There needs to be leadership at the National Assembly in order for big changes to be made and to ensure our voice will be heard,” said Gatineau Health Foundation executive director and coalition spokesperson Jean Pigeon. “That’s what SOS Outaouais is about, a voice that represents every single citizen that lives in our region.”

Launched and supported by the Gatineau Health Foundation, SOS Outaouais brings together organizations and citizens from across the region in a collective voice to draw attention to the eroding health-care network.

While there has been recent media attention on the region’s lack of imagery technicians driving a shortage of services, Pigeon claimed the whole network was hanging by a thread.

“We’re not providing the care that we should and it’s nothing else, I think, than just not  receiving the resources that we need to do that work,” said Pigeon.

According to the region’s catch-up study by the Observatoire du développement de l’Outaouais, even with expenditures in Ontario, approximately $181 million was missing in Outaouais compared to the province’s average health spending in 2021 and 2022.

“We pay the same taxes. We should have the same access to the services, but we don’t. And that is a fact.”

Along with correcting the historical disproportion in spending, the coalition was urging immediate permanent measures like providing pay differentials to compete with the exodus of staff leaving for higher pay in Ontario.

“(We need to) provide those salary conditions for them to work in the region where they reside. If not, they’re going to keep on, and I totally understand why they would cross the bridge every day to go work in an Ontario hospital.”

Those looking to support SOS Outaouais can join the close to 600 other citizens lending their voice to the initiative and donating at sosoutaouais.ca.

Photo caption: The Gatineau Health Foundation organized a press conference on June 6 to launch SOS Outaouais, a regional coalition enacted to focus the National Assembly of Québec’s attention on Outaouais’ eroding health-care network.

Photo credit: SOS Outaouais Facebook