Pontiac residents can count on one of the best hospitals in all of Quebec, one of the only 24-7 CLSC Emergency Rooms in the province and a state of the art long-term care facility. Nearly every citizen has a family doctor and our local healthcare professionals are dedicated to quality patient care.
However, we do face a significant challenge, as do many other parts of the province, and that is that our healthcare facilities are short-staffed. There is an obvious difficulty in recruitment of qualified workers and retirements currently exceed new hires.
As such, personnel is forced to work overtime and at times patients feel the impact of the lack of staff.
In order to address the situation, an action plan for each type of healthcare professional must be put in place.

For ward aids, we are proposing, among other measures, to reduce the training time by partly providing on-the-job training which will allow for professionals to start treating patients sooner.
For nurses, we are proposing to post more full-time positions in order to end forced overtime in two years and to implement the results of the pilot projects currently underway to identify the proper nurse-patient ratios. This will allow for a stability in our patient care teams and to reduce overall use of overtime.
For nurse practitioners, we are proposing to train and hire 2,000 nurse practitioners over the next years and to allow them to take more responsibilities and to perform more treatments.
For pharmacists, we are proposing that they be able to provide vaccines in order to give more flexibility to patients and reduce the workload of healthcare professionals in hospitals or clinics.
For doctors, while other parties are proposing to drastically decrease their salaries (which in this region may lead to doctors choosing to practice in Ontario hospitals), we are proposing to work with our medical professionals to reduce wait-times for specialists and to make better use of our Pontiac facilities for surgeries that can be done here. We want more access to specialists here at home in the Pontiac, and not always in Gatineau, Ottawa or Montreal.
Additionally, we are proposing to increase the overall budget of homecare by 25 per cent and to provide more financial assistance to caregivers who choose to keep elderly family members in their homes, as this certainly helps to reduce the workload to our healthcare system.
One additional note, I am proud to say that the Pontiac has been heard and that I carried your message to our party. Parking rates would:
– Remain free for visitors and patients at the Shawville Hospital and all Pontiac healthcare facilities
– Become free at every long-term care facility across the province
– Be significantly reduced in City hospitals to a $7 maximum daily rate, where the first two hours would be free of charge.
Finally, I am proud to say that our dialysis unit, for which so many Pontiac residents contributed, will be in service shortly. I am committed to continuing to work hand-in-hand with our local Foundations to improve services in our Pontiac.