Sylvain Comeau Change, one of today's most popular buzzwords, was at the heart of a panel discussion on medical care and hospitals last Tuesday, organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Two speakers with much at stake in the debate examined whether changes brought on by budget cuts will improve or harm medical care in Quebec. Dr. Nicolas Steinmetz, Associate Executive Director, Planning, of the McGill University Hospital Centre, presented himself as an advocate of change.
Hospitals achieve permanence by adapting to the changing needs of society.
The McGill University Hospital Centre, which Steinmetz says will be established in seven or eight years, is a planned consolidation of five teaching hospitals and the Faculty of Medicine. But Steinmetz believes that medical care goes far beyond hospitals. First, by not equating medical care with hospitals, and second, by developing a network of services that would assure that a patient get the right treatment at the right time and place, by the right person. It was never designed to do anything, it just grew. Steinmetz sees the Centre as a model for a future of health care marked by fewer institutions and fewer beds.