How some things in Quebec's health system changed for better after 2 years of COVID

Dr. Michael Kanevsky has taken modern medicine to a whole new level during the pandemic. All it took was a garage, some virtual reality glasses and an internet connection. 

The Montreal doctor is now seeing 30 to 40 per cent more patients since he began offering virtual consultations from home.

In fact, he sees 90 per cent of his patients virtually.

"We can allow our patients to not have to inconvenience themselves by coming to the office," he said.

Kanevsky still sees patients in person whenever necessary, but he says the pandemic has taught him how to be more efficient. 

"Of course, we need more doctors, but we also have to repair a broken system, and we've managed to start doing that," he said. 

Private clinics help with surgeries

Kanevsky isn't the only one who has made changes during the pandemic. Quebec's Ministry of Health says it is offloading about 15 per cent of its surgeries to the private system.

Dr. Pierre Garneau, head of surgery at the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, said private clinics have been essential "and will remain essential even after the pandemic."

He said the public system simply doesn't have the capacity to keep up. 

"We can't live without this. We can never go back because the hospital capacity is no longer there. The operating room capacity is not there. There are staffing problems," said Garneau. 

'More support' for nurses, union says

Quebec nurses, meanwhile, may look back at the past two years and have trouble finding anything positive.

While everyone is looking forward to things getting back to normal after such an exhausting pandemic, staff have noted that patients and visitors of the health-care network have become more understanding, said Kristina Hoare, a nurses' union spokesperson for Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec.

"We have more support from the public that we take care of than we did before the pandemic," said Hoare.

"Other than that, that's the only positive from a nursing point of view that we have seen in the last two years."

Dr. Liane Feldman, surgeon-in-chief at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), said the pandemic has forced the health-care system to think more deeply about aligning available services with the needs of the patients.

She said the MUHC has made the way surgery patients are prioritized more transparent, and that process brought teams together to discuss patients' needs.

"And I think it gave us a more patient-centred approach," said Feldman. "Those are lessons that we will move forward with as well."

The MUHC, which includes a network of hospitals and medical offices around Montreal, has been reviewing the way sites are used, and what services are offered at each location.

"The more we think about the resources we do have, and how to use them most efficiently, I think those are principles we have been forced to think about in a lot more detail," she said.