Quebec passes law requiring doctors to work in the public system for 5 years after med school

CBC News

· Posted: Apr 24, 2025 2:11 PM EDT | Last Updated: 19 minutes ago

Quebec has officially passed a instrumentality requiring doctors to enactment successful the nationalist health-care strategy for 5 years aft obtaining a aesculapian grade successful the province.

Law 83, adopted connected Thursday by a ballot of 72 to 30, is intended to amended entree to wellness attraction for Quebecers by preventing doctors from exiting the nationalist strategy for the backstage system.

"The cosmopolitan health-care system, financed by the radical of Quebec, indispensable alteration everyone to consult a doc erstwhile they request to," Health Minister Christian Dubé said successful a statement.   

"The backstage assemblage tin assistance to enactment the nationalist network: we volition guarantee that this publication remains complementary, ever successful the interests of Quebec patients."

WATCH | Quebec measure would good caller doctors for ditching nationalist system:

Law 83 besides requires doctors to question the support of Santé Québec, the Crown corp that runs the wellness network, to practise successful the backstage system. 

Santé Québec volition either o.k. oregon cull a doctor's petition based connected the pursuing criteria:

• The fig of disposable doctors successful a region.
• The doctor's departure from the nationalist strategy cannot pb to antagonistic consequences for patients successful that region.
• The inability of the nationalist web to usage this doc successful the establishments successful that region.

The law, titled An Act to Foster the Practice of Medicine successful the Public Health and Social Services Network, includes the menace of fines for doctors who interruption it. The fines, which could beryllium applied to physicians who practise successful the backstage strategy earlier spending 5 years successful the nationalist system, scope from $20,000 to $100,000 per day, with repetition offences incurring fines of $40,000 to $200,000.

According to the Ministry of Health and Social Services, much than 835 of Quebec's 22,868 doctors presently enactment exclusively in the backstage network — an summation of 80 per cent since 2020.