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Rivière-du-Loup – Delegates to the General Council of the APTS (Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux) took to the streets today in Rivière-du-Loup to protest against the growing movement to privatize Québec’s health and social services. Several hundred demonstrators came together to express their opposition to Complexe Santé Rivière-du-Loup, a controversial project carried out by Medway, a real estate developer. The project is a serious threat to the accessible and universal character of health care and social services in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region.

The Medway project, which involves building a private facility to provide health and social services in the region, embodies all of privatization’s negative effects. Residents of Rivière-du-Loup, as elsewhere across Québec, are already finding it difficult to access care, and this project threatens to aggravate the labour shortage in public institutions and increase the unequal nature of access to health care services. “Making health care and social services into a commodity is a wholly unacceptable step backwards for our universal system,” said Simon Dubé, APTS provincial representative for the Bas-Saint-Laurent. “The Medway project will divert human resources from the public to the private sector, jeopardizing the quality of services for Quebecers in general and especially for the most vulnerable among us.”

Johannie Blais, APTS Bas-Saint-Laurent president, noted that the project is open to criticism not just because it will be appropriating employees who would otherwise be available for the public system. “The CISSS will spend $11 million in public funds on its rental contract with Medway. Taken from taxpayers’ pockets, this amount will help accentuate the deterioration of our public system while funding care for people who can already afford to look to the private sector. That really takes the cake!”

In response to this threat and the injustice it represents, the APTS is sending the government a clear message: the insidious privatization of our system must end, and public health care and social services must be protected. “We are united in defending the public system and its ability to provide accessible, high-quality care for all,” said APTS president Robert Comeau. “We do not accept the undermining of our common good by private interests, and we want the government to abandon the Medway project and any future attempt to privatize Québec’s health care and social services.”

The APTS

The APTS (Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux) represents more than 65,000 members who play a key role in ensuring that health and social services institutions run smoothly. Our members provide a wide range of services for all Quebecers, including diagnostic, rehabilitation, nutrition, psychosocial intervention, clinical support, and prevention services.