Memo to Health Minister Christian Dubé: More carrot, less stick.
Just as the pen is mightier than the sword, the carrot is superior to the stick.
And yet, Health Minister Christian Dubé’s proposed solution for steering new doctors away from the private sector and into the public system is to use legislative force and lock the door for a minimum of five years.
The better idea: Improve work conditions so physicians experience satisfaction and fulfilment in their role and, thus, will want to choose the public system.
Nick Di Cino, Ahuntsic-Cartierville
Put services before structures
I would tend to go along with Allison Hanes and bet nothing will change for the better in the health-care system under Santé Québec.
Why is it that the government seems to get it wrong time and time again? Is it, as Hanes suggests, because the effort to overhaul health care is focused on structures rather than services?
Timely and efficient services are what Quebecers need and what medical professionals are trained to provide.
It’s been far too long now that we hear mostly of problems and too little about workable solutions.
Goldie Olszynko, Mile End
For patients, words matter
As a former board certified oncology social worker at a major teaching hospital in Montreal, I can attest to how much words and phrases matter.
All too often, patients who feel anxious and vulnerable are subjected to words and/or phrases spoken by their health-care provider that exasperate their sense of hope and renders them even more concerned and fearful for their future.
It has been my experience when patients and their families find themselves in a clinical setting they are generally known to hang on to every word the doctor says.
Therefore, I feel it incumbent upon the physician to always be aware that regardless of the prognosis, healing is a process that continues until one’s very last breath.
Thus, doctors best heed the wisdom and advice spelled out in the book Whole Person Care (Tom A. Hutchinson, editor) by Dr. Abraham Fuks, who writes: “The skein of recognition, commitment, and directedness toward the other that can relieve suffering and permit healing is spun by language and knotted by words.”
Brahms E. Silver, Côte-St-Luc
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