Action Santé Outaouais, a non-profit that advocates for citizens’ health care rights, recently released a report on a series of discussion groups that they hosted in rural areas in November 2023, including one in Bristol.
Mathieu Charbonneau, the group’s director, explained that they tried to focus on the shared challenges that these regions had, as opposed to issues that were particular to one area.
The report highlights six priorities for action to improve health care in rural regions.
“The six actions identified here stem from the fact that the many reforms in recent years have not yielded expected results, especially in rural areas,” the report reads. “The time has come to ask why we keep spending more to get lower volume and standard of care.”
Charbonneau highlighted what he called three especially important priorities: improving services at CLSCs, address staff shortages through competitive salaries and the establishment of “true local management”.
The full report is available here.
