Concerned individuals and community groups from various backgrounds have formed a coalition with Outaouais healthcare professionals in an attempt to bring greater attention to the urgent needs of the region’s healthcare network.
The coalition, named SOS Outaouais, was organized by the Fondation Santé Gatineau and launched on June 6. It aims to advocate, with one voice, for immediate support from the provincial government in ending the healthcare staffing crisis that has plagued the Outaouais for several years.
Jean Pigeon, director of the Gatineau health foundation, will act as the coalition’s spokesperson.
“We believe that it is time for all of our population throughout the Outaouais region to mobilize themselves and to face the urgency of our healthcare system that definitely is at its limit,” Pigeon told CHIP FM last week.
The decision to organize a multidisciplinary citizen’s coalition was inspired by a historic mobilization effort to save the Montfort hospital in Ottawa in the 1990s.
Current members of the coalition include Action Santé Outaouais, as well as several of the head doctors from the region’s hospitals who have previously spoken out about the crisis by way of public letters to the CAQ government.
Fortin’s request rejected
Also last week, Pontiac MNA André Fortin’s request that the province’s Commission on Health and Social Services visit the Outaouais region to see first-hand the severity of the current staffing shortages was rejected by the CAQ government.
Fortin, also health critic for the official opposition, made the request to the National Assembly in May.
“For months, I’ve been consistently trying to communicate to the Health Minister the critical and unique challenges our healthcare system in Outaouais is facing,” Fortin said in a press release announcing the decision.
“The situation is worsened by the considerable migration of staff to neighboring Ontario. Despite my efforts, the CAQ refuses to act and ignores the firsthand experiences of those in the field.”
THE EQUITY reached out to the province’s Ministry of Health and Social Services to learn why this request was rejected, but did not hear back before publication deadline.












