Due to its strong commitment to reducing waitlists, the public health network in Quebec continues its shift towards the private sector, transferring to it examinations and day surgeries (lasting one day), hoping that this will help provide time for surgeries in hospitals.

In the coming weeks, healthcare institutions in Greater Montreal are preparing to award record-value contracts to specialized medical centers (CMS) that provide day surgery, endoscopy, imaging, and ophthalmology procedures.

According to a compilation by Radio-Canada, about 12 institutions from the public health network intend to seek assistance from the private sector for over 600,000 medical procedures over the next five years, with a total estimated value of around 500 million dollars.

For example, in the Montérégie area, which surrounds the Island of Montreal on three sides, the three health institutions (in the west, center, and east) expect to award the private sector contracts totaling about 120 million dollars according to the lowest bids revealed.

The healthcare institutions in this area, as well as in other regions of Quebec, aim to reduce waitlists.

It is worth mentioning that the Quebec Health Minister, Christian Dubé, and the president of the Quebec Federation of Specialists, Dr. Christian Oliva, publicly committed in May 2023 to "compensate for the backlog in surgical interventions during the pandemic (COVID-19)."

The goal, in particular, is to reduce the number of patients on waitlists for more than a year to 2,500 by December 2024.

This is a race against time, as approximately 15,000 patients have been waiting for over a year out of a total of about 155,000 waiting, while the waitlist for a consultation with a specialist still exceeds 800,000 patients.

It should also be noted that during the pandemic, many short-term contracts were awarded by mutual agreement under the health emergency decree.

The office of the Health Minister in the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government notes in an email that "the official bidding process we have just launched will allow us to be more transparent and predictable from now on."

On the other hand, the spokesperson for the Quebec Solidarity Party (QS) on health issues, MP Vincent Marissal, states that "it is very clear that the specialized medical centers operate in modern facilities and according to favorable schedules, (and they are) much more attractive than our old, crumbling hospitals."