“As a French-Canadian who supports some coercive measures to impose French, this is outrageous.”
At a time when Quebec — and, for that matter, Canada — is having difficulties attracting and retaining medical staff, why in heaven’s name would staff not be “bristling “ at these intrusive inspections?
It’s so sad some Quebecers are feeling the walls closing in on them when it comes to language and culture issues. I have been to Quebec many times. Our two children did their education there. We always were drawn to the uniqueness of the French culture and the language.
I would suspect that the medical profession in Quebec is having more problems attracting people to this vital field. Maybe this is just another reason not to enter that field, or take your qualifications to a place where something like Bill 96 doesn’t come up.
So sad that Quebec continues to alienate itself. But hospitals? Boggles the mind.
Keith Lawson, Orangeville
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Overheard in a hospital operating room: “I am sorry, Mr. Smith, but they are forbidding me from operating on your advanced cancer unless the team speaks French. We will all take some courses. Please come back next year.”
Jerry Trudeau, Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace
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This coercive behaviour of the CAQ might cost them the next election. Or they’ll keep pushing their agenda and the losers will be all the people of Quebec.
Goudarz Salehi
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From the comments section:
Everyone at Santa Cabrini Hospital speaks French. For many employees, French is their only language. One hears English when second- and third-generation Italians (employees and patients) speak to one another. Clearly, someone overheard such a conversation and decided to call the language cops. What a waste of time and resources.
Dominic Iannuzzi
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As a French-Canadian who supports some coercive measures to impose French, this is outrageous. French should be mandatory in Quebec; it should be mandatory in public institutions outside of Quebec in areas where there is a current or historic French community; it should be mandatory in train stations, airports, on expressway signs and plenty of other spaces. But why would you fight the use of secondary and tertiary languages?
The aim is clear to me: To make language minorities feel unwelcome, so that they leave. That is not what we want or need. We need all of our population to learn our common language, and for that, we need to improve the teaching of French in elementary and high school. We need to stop discrimination against English speakers who move from other provinces and cannot get French classes. And we need to be an example of bilingualism in our institutions, so that we may maintain legitimacy in our efforts to preserve our language after 300 years of mass migration.
When I am sick or tired, even I lose proficiency in English. Weakened people revert to their first languages. Elders and the young sometimes do not know French very well; same with tourists, foreign students and new immigrants.
Hospitals should serve everyone, not just those the state deems worthy of care. As for hospital charts done in French, that can be justified, unless the person is a visitor and the charts will be read abroad. Some of our medical staff has poor knowledge of English.
Francis C
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The Quebec health-care system is teetering on the edge of collapse, ER patients are dying before getting care due to extreme overcrowding and staff shortages, but the Office québécois de la langue française and Premier François Legault think it’s the perfect time to send the language police into hospitals to harass staff. The monkeys are running the asylum.
Gene Kruger
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I want to applaud the CAQ government for taking more measures to ensure that the health-care system goes from being bad and dysfunctional to totally broken down and useless. This must be part of its grand plan to phase in private health care under the guise of improving the state of French.
John Fields
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The staff at Santa Cabrini Hospital should ignore all language police who enter the premises and tell them to leave. If they refuse to leave, the hospital management should call the police.
Then, when the Quebec government tries to make a stink about it, the hospital should invite the international media to visit with their reporters and cameras in order to make them aware of what is happening.
Let the world see and hear how Quebec’s population is not receiving adequate care, and how there is blatant and unacceptable government interference.
Let the world see and hear and ridicule the CAQ for its clearly discriminatory policies, thereby warning visitors who may find themselves needing medical care in the province.
How would the Quebec government deal with hospital staff who refuse to speak French? Fines? Dismissal? Jail time?
How I would love to see a doctor or hospital administrator dare to deliberately go to jail so that the world can witness the insanity that is occurring in Quebec.
Will a patient who is unable to communicate adequately in French have to die before the anger and outrage force the Quebec government to reverse course on this nonsense?
Urban Legend
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Good to see the government tackling the important issues. The public health system is crumbling, but at least it will be crumbling in French.
Stephen Gillis
In Europe, most countries have both private and public options, and satisfaction is greater than in Canada. Health outcomes are better as well. Most people use the public system most of the time, but sometimes go for a private option.
Those worried about inequality prefer to have everyone get the same poor level of health care. They think it is a zero-sum game where every doctor going private means one less doctor in the public system. That is shallow thinking. The more options doctors have, the more doctors will want to come from other countries and work here. Conversely, banning private medicine will drive more doctors out of the public system to the U.S. and other countries.
Bill Steinberg, Hampstead
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Do not blame medical practitioners and specialists for opting out of RAMQ.
Equitable access to medical care means years-long waiting lists, poor quality of life for those living in pain and possibly lives cut short. We are among the highest-taxed citizens in the world, but our health-care system is broken. People have a right to seek doctors in the private sector because they value their health and quality of life. What is appalling are the conditions that have made doctors and specialists leave the public system.
Ruth Khazzam, Westmount
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From the comments section:
The government has created its own problem. Shift the blame.
Sabrina Nolan
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Equitable access has come to mean everyone gets poor care. I am one of the ones who was denied care and had to leave the country to save my life. Private care means at least some people get actual health care. Because believe me, there is no “care” in the health system.
Where I am now, I have my cardiologist’s personal phone number, my dentist’s personal number — and I can get all of them by WhatsApp, usually instantly, if needed. If I had stayed in Canada, I would be dead. So the cost doesn’t actually matter, does it?
Dave Ball
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A large part of the solution lies in freeing up the time of medical professionals by reducing centralization, bureaucratic requirements and paperwork. A medical task that can take five minutes might require an hour of paperwork.
Nath Elberg
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I am really sitting on the fence between public and private health care. Public health care is free (well, almost, as our taxes go to this), but service is not very good. However, if you are hospitalized, the public system has world-class service and care. Outside hospital care, it is lacking for sure.
Private health care is common in Europe, where most people are satisfied, but you pay for it, so major surgeries can get quite expensive.
L K
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As an older person, I find it very complicated to get an appointment with the doctor, or with a clinic for a minor emergency, and impossible to speak to my family doctor. I cannot even leave a message for him to call me back when he has time to answer a question that will keep me away from the hospital emergency room — God help me if I have to go there.
Jerry O’Donoghue