Quebec — Quebec Premier Jean Charest confirmed his government's commitment Thursday to public health care but opened the door to private insurance for knee, hip and cataract surgery.
“We're putting the private sector to work for the public,” Mr. Charest told a news conference, calling it “a new era” for health care in Quebec. “We're taking a measured step in this direction.”
Patients can turn to private clinics for knee, hip and cataract surgery after a six-month wait in the public system, the news conference was told.
However, Mr. Charest said the province's health-care system was founded on equality and compassion and his government “will not turn our backs on those values.”
He was responding to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling last June that Quebec's ban on private health-care insurance violated the province's charter of rights. The decision gave Mr. Charest's Liberal government a year to respond.
The Quebec government will enact a law setting out waiting times for access to cancer and heart surgeries, he said. Those surgeries will not be open to the private system, Mr. Charest added.
He said the reforms will be implemented gradually and called the private sector an “ally and a partner.”
Other provinces moving in this direction are British Columbia and Alberta.
British Columbia also intends to include a further role for the private sector in its health-care system. The B.C. government also wants to add the principle of sustainability to the Canada Health Act.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has been talking for more than a year about bringing in changes to health care, some mix of a public and private system. That province's first “third way” legislation is expected to be tabled this spring.
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