“Everyone worried about our health-care system, including the new Santé Québec agency, should also be concerned about the extent of access the unhoused have to medical care.”
The Quebec government estimated there were 4,690 unhoused people in Montreal in 2022, nearly a 50 per cent increase from 2018. With our skyrocketing rents, we can expect similar increases to come.
Everyone worried about our health-care system, including the new Santé Québec agency, should also be concerned about the extent of access the unhoused have to medical care, and conversely how the medical system relates to the unhoused.
As well, what kind of health problems do we see among the unhoused? Who is researching this and what is being done about it? Are these not essential questions?
Shloime Perel, Côte-St-Luc
Money for Olympic Stadium’s roof could be spent on shelter
Donna Friedlansky, Snowdon
A better use for Santé Québec’s budget
Health Minister Christian Dubé blames Quebec’s failing medical system in part on doctors’ unions being inflexible while he continues to spend our tax dollars on enlarging the bureaucracy, looking to those bureaucrats to cut costs while paying them huge salaries.
The medical profession is flexible by nature. Trained doctors can work almost anywhere they choose, but not here in Quebec. Respectfully, I suggest the last 20 years of reforms and negotiations have been a total failure and the only thing needed in the system is more doctors, particularly GPs — not more organizers. Spend the Santé Québec budget on more medical professionals.
The solution seems so simple for the underserved population. Why can’t the bureaucrats in the system see it? Maybe they all need regular examinations from our ophthalmologists.
Lili Yesovitch, Côte-St-Luc
A French lesson from Belgium
I’m a Montrealer who has been living in Dublin since 1976. I have travelled extensively in Europe and have just come back from a few days in Brussels. I happily spoke French whenever I had a chance. My wife and two daughters, who are Irish, spoke English and never had a problem anywhere.
The Belgians are extremely friendly and quite happy to speak English. Every restaurant and shop had English signs in profusion. If someone did not speak English, they were polite and helpful.
I do feel that if English speakers travel to a place with a different official language, they should learn some basic phrases in that language. But I also feel Quebec’s way of dealing with its so-called protection of French is wrong in so many ways.
Ted Egri, Dublin
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