Health

Up to 500 more professionals trained each year to help on the front line, walk-in services offered in CLSCs and mobile teams in the region, particularly for the DPJ: Minister Lionel Carmant promises reinforcements to reduce delays in the field of mental health.

At the CLSC Sainte-Catherine, in the heart of downtown Montreal, workers offer immediately accessible psychological care, similar to an emergency room in a hospital.

“We want to reproduce that across Quebec,” confides the minister responsible for Social Services in an interview with our Parliamentary Office. The initiative is part of a broader approach to bring mental health services back to CLSCs in Quebec, an offer often neglected in recent years.

However, patients will have to get used to no longer systematically meeting a psychologist. Like the doctors who have delegated several acts to super nurses in recent years, Minister Carmant wants to involve other professionals.

Delegate actions

“We have to be open to more than just the psychologist and the psychiatrist. When we are in distress, especially when we are experiencing a one-off situation, there are many other people who can come and help us,” he emphasizes.

This decompartmentalization of professions is part of ongoing negotiations with public sector unions, as is a significant increase in the salaries of psychologists in the public network.

Thus, social workers, occupational therapists, clinical nurses or specialists, in particular, will be able to participate in psychosocial support. A psychologist or psychiatrist, present a few days a week, will take care of the most serious cases.

Promote high school graduates

To improve this front-line workforce, Quebec plans to modify the bachelor’s degree in psychology next year so that it now offers a clinical approach.

“Because the baccalaureate in psychology, currently, is something very theoretical which does not really provide expertise. There are no internships. People who graduate from psychology have to do something else. Now, they will be able to start working because they will be exposed to the clinic,” explains Minister Carmant.

Quebec thus responds to one of the recommendations of the report by former minister Hélène David on psychology training. Currently, universities train thousands of undergraduate graduates, but only a handful will go all the way to a doctorate to practice as psychologists.

“I think it might easily add 500 people per year to the network,” estimates Lionel Carmant.

Regarding another recommendation from the David report – to train 100 more psychologists per year – the minister emphasizes that the file is in the hands of his colleague in Higher Education. “It seems very feasible,” however, believes Mr. Carmant, according to whom Quebec will have no other choice but to train more psychologists.

Health Quebec

Finally, the minister is also banking on the creation of the Santé Québec agency, led by his colleague Christian Dubé, to allow greater mobility of staff by creating a single employer in the health network.

Already, psychologists and psychiatrists from large centers take care of clients in remote regions, either by videoconference or by traveling to the site. But unionized employees, accredited with a health establishment, do not have the same latitude.

The minister does not hide his disappointment at a flying team initiative, at the Directorate of Youth Protection, put on hold following an outcry from the union. The social workers, volunteers, however, came from places where the waiting lists had been emptied, he points out.

“Santé Québec will come and break this, with a single employer, and we will be able to help much more easily,” says Mr. Carmant.

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