More people are living in Quebec's Laurentians, but its health-care system can't keep up
CBC
Donna Anber loves living in the Laurentians.
The area, located about 150 kilometres northwest of Montreal, is idyllic: rolling hills of thick green forests and lakes, mountains dotted with small towns and cottages built for long weekends away from the city.
"The quality of life here is amazing. I wouldn't change it for the world," said Anber from her home in Sainte-Adèle, Que.
But now she's considering leaving. There's only one reason: health care.
After years of grappling with full walk-in clinics, follow-ups in the city and hospitals regularly operating over-capacity, Anber said she will likely move.
"You cannot get access to services. Our walk-in clinics — they're a joke," she told CBC News.
"I'm 57. I'm in good health … but later on, I'm not so sure I'll get the same services that I might need."
She isn't the only one who's noticed what many say is a critical problem in cottage country. Municipalities and doctors say that as the population of the Laurentians has grown, the funding for the area's health-care system hasn't kept up, leaving residents in the lurch.
According to census data, the population of the Laurentians is rising fast. About 50,000 people moved to the region since 2016 alone — a population increase of 7.9 per cent. (The Quebec average was 4.1 per cent.)
"I'm seeing nothing is changing," Anber said. "It's just getting worse."
It was a snowy Friday afternoon in December when Peggy Drennan, of Sainte-Anne-des-Lacs, developed a hernia requiring emergency surgery.
Her family doctor told her to go to the ER, but when they phoned ahead, they learned there wasn't a surgeon on duty at Laurentian Hospital in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts.
Faced with the idea of trying her luck at another hospital in the area, Drennan decided to take a different route: she drove across the provincial border, to Hawkesbury, Ont., over 80 kilometres away.
While Drennan said she thinks the quality of the health care in the Laurentians is "fantastic" when you can get it, she said the problem is how hard it is to access.
A long-serving United Church minister is preparing to leave his pulpit, adding pressure at a time when filling vacancies has become increasingly difficult.
Garrett Hawkins is on the cusp of making it to the big leagues. The pitcher from Biggar, Sask., has been added to the San Diego Padres 40-man roster.
Charlottetown Police and Fire Services are asking residents to avoid areas around Green Street due to a structure fire on Sunday morning.
Despite being born on a Christmas tree farm in Ohio, he wasn't really a fan of the holiday season.
A Hamilton hospital network is taking a closer look at how psychedelics might be useful in medicine.
Most people would prefer to spend the Christmas holiday weekend in warmth and comfort — but a Philadelphia man is going to spend it trudging 120 kilometres in the cold across Windsor-Essex.
Long before the first Calgary Stampede, the city attracted a different kind of cowboy.
After waiting four years to get his son the support the family says he needs to navigate school with learning challenges, a father from London, Ont. is fighting to make equitable healthcare and education a fundamental right.
Waterloo region and Guelph are under two yellow weather alerts warning of freezing rain changing to heavy rainfall Sunday, Environment Canada says.
A survey recently conducted on Prince Edward Island turned up a type of freshwater snail that experts say has never before been identified in the Maritimes.
A downtown Toronto long-term care home is rebuilding with a new design that considers lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, going beyond the province’s standards — but some say those standards are out of date.
It’s another wet and stormy day for much of Newfoundland and Labrador.
It’s been years since the tiny but aggressive European green crab made its way over to the Magdalen Islands, and some researchers in Quebec are warning it could be headed for the Gaspé next.