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.
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