Closure in Obstetrics: A Petition to Avoid Service Disruptions

A petition will be tabled in the National Assembly on Wednesday to ask the Quebec government to intervene to avoid service disruptions in pregnancy follow-ups, six weeks before the closure of the Center for Obstetrics and Gynecology of the City. Meanwhile, the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale is preparing to receive patients without follow-up.

When we are pregnant for the first time, it is very important, the relationship we have with our doctor, and the CAQ is putting it all in jeopardysaid in an interview the Liberal MP for Robert-Baldwin, Brigitte Garceau, who sponsored the petition.

The document, signed by 135 people, demands that Quebec guarantee continuity of care for pregnant women and that it maintain and strengthen access to obstetrics and gynecology care in the Quebec region.

The signatories also ask him to review the funding of off-site clinics to ensure the sustainability of specialized services.

Financing is one of the challenges that, combined with the end of the lease, has pushed the management of the largest obstetrician-gynecologist clinic in eastern Quebec to make the decision to close, after 30 years of activity.

In fact, doctors who practice outside hospitals receive financial compensation for the procedure to cover their management costs. But this, fixed for several years, must be revised upwards, believe the doctors at the Cité clinic.

Without an increase in this funding, we would have ended up closing anywayalways believes Vanessa Picard Fortin, head of the Center for Obstetrics and Gynecology of the City, in an interview.

According to her, the only option for the clinic to revive without an increase in its funding would be to find new premises for it, within the buildings of the CIUSSS of the Capitale-Nationale or CHU from Quebec.

Give us premises somewhere, we’ll do it, that’s for sure. Give us a grant, some funding, we’ll get organized. I don’t think we’re asking a lot to continue to offer, I think, excellent service.she asks.

Center d’obstetrics de la Cité: the impasse persists

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The CIUSSS preparing to receive more patients

The fact remains that a change in the method of financing outpatient clinics does not seem to be on the government’s radar, a month and a half before the announced closure of the clinic.

The CIUSSS is already preparing to mitigate the impact of the end of activities of the Cité gynecology and obstetrics clinic.

Indeed, the CIUSSS hear offer an alternative to pregnant women requiring follow-up when opening an interdisciplinary pregnancy follow-up clinic made up of three nurses and three midwives, aiming to enable the follow-up of low-risk pregnanciesindicates a spokesperson by email.

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The CIUSSS is waiting for this project to be approved by Santé Québec before moving forward. In the meantime, he recommends that pregnant women make an appointment with a family doctor, a specialized nurse practitioner or a midwife and advises consulting the My Pregnancy website to be guided towards these resources.

3000 more appointments at CHU from Quebec

With its closure, approximately 16,000 primary care follow-up appointments (regular pregnancy follow-ups, without complications) will no longer be made each year at the Cité clinic. THE CIUSSS does not specify whether its new offer will absorb all the demand.

The clinic also carried out around 3,000 second and third line follow-ups (for pregnancies requiring more complex follow-up), a service whose future seems clearer.

Since January 26, the CHU de Québec has increased the availability of its premises for Cité doctors who already practice there, so that they can take care of more patients there. This represents around 3,000 meetings per year, indicates a spokesperson for the CHU on the phone.

He specifies that the mandate of CHU is to ensure the second, third and fourth lines of care, but that the integration of the Cité clinic within it does not correspond to its mission.

This amounts to offering resources without allowing us to have staff to make appointmentsconsiders for its part the D^re Vanessa Picard Fortin, who would like to be able to provide the same number of follow-ups.

We proposed to CHU to integrate its premises while continuing to pay our staff. I told them: ”If you don’t have anyone to arrange meetings, I will pay someone to do it.” Then they told me no despite everything.she says.

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A promise from François Legault

Last October, Prime Minister François Legault was nevertheless reassuring about the future of the Cité clinic. We’ll find them a place, he had promised in the room.