Doctors’ report lays out list of shortfalls in Nunavik health care
‘The CMQ nailed it,’ says head of board of health, who hopes government acts quickly to improve situation
Dr. Mauril Gaudreault, president of Quebec’s College of Physicians shown at bottom left, visits Kuujjuaq’s hospital in May 2023. (Photo courtesy of Collège des Médecins du Québec)
Dr. Mauril Gaudreault, president of Quebec’s College of Physicians, visited Kuujjuaq for the first time in May 2023. (Photo courtesy of Collège des Médecins du Québec)
The head of the CMQ, Quebec’s College of Physicians, has delivered a cutting report on the state of health care in Nunavik.
“I am unsure that the majority of Quebecers know what is going on. Nor would they accept this level of health care in their own region,” said Dr. Mauril Gaudreault in the report, which was released Monday.
The second edition of the CMQ’s Tour of the Health Poles report provides a 30-page analysis of its members’ visits to seven hospitals last year.
Representatives for the organization visited hospitals across Quebec in 2023 to get a clear picture of the state of health care in the province.
In May 2023, Gaudreault and his team visited the Tulattavik Health Centre in Kuujjuaq — the first time the professional order had been to Nunavik.
The report on their findings, released in French, did not hold back in showing the difficulties residents in the North face in accessing health care.
Gaudreault said many factors — lack of surgical rooms, shortages of medical and specialized staff, some communities’ lack of running water, inconsistent cell service, costly electricity, reliance on medevacs and high rate of accidents — form a reality “out of the ordinary” compared to the rest of Quebec.
“The CMQ nailed it,” said Jennifer Munick-Watkins, executive director of the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, in an interview.
“I took it with gratitude, because I work with the provincial government and they are very much aware of the situation we are in,” she said, adding the report reinforced what she has already told government officials.
In the report, Gaudreault notes Nunavik’s mortality rate is six times higher than the rest of the province, life expectancy is 12 years shorter, and the suicide rate is 10 times higher.
The report did not provide further data on those rates.
“The socio-medical context in this territory is nothing like the rest of Quebec,” Gaudreault said in the report. “It comes from a reality of a colonial past and present, being an integral part of psycho-social determinants in Nunavik.”
That reality weighs on Munick-Watkins.
“Although the health network is very complex, I feel like I have an extra burden on trying to ensure the well-being of Nunavimmiut is at par with the rest of the province,” she said.
Gaudreault called the COVID-19 pandemic a major setback for health services in Nunavik.
Munick-Watkins agreed, saying that infrastructure improvements were so delayed that the government is still trying to recover from it.
Jennifer Munick-Watkins, executive director of Nunavik’s regional health board, met with Dr. Mauril Gaudreault during his visit and hopes his organization’s new report will aid her in lobbying for better health care in Nunavik. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)
“There is no room for shipping” new materials in, she said. “We are all fighting for the same room on the ship for our materials to come up, it has caused delays everywhere.”
She estimated it will take the health board another two years to fully recover.
Among his recommendations, Gaudreault said having more medical equipment and staff on site in Nunavik would lessen its reliance on medevac services.
Gaudreault said Quebec’s health ministry is working with the federal Department of Indigenous Affairs on a “global plan for care in Nunavik.”
He hopes the plan can be completed before the end of the current provincial mandate. The next general election in Quebec is scheduled for Oct. 5, 2026.
Nunatsiaq News contacted Quebec’s Ministry of Health regarding that plan but representatives have not responded.
Munick-Watkins said she wasn’t aware of the plan, but wants the government to take action quickly to improve health care in Nunavik.
“We have no time for politics,” she said. “The health system is a living reality, it is the well-being of people, the mental state of people we are dealing with, and we are chasing time.”
High rate of accidents , brought on by high alcohol consumption.
You forgot to mention the underage drivers. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 year olds driving recklessly in most if not all Nunavik communities.
I need help and I don’t know who to or who to contact my father is a resident of Nunavut for the last 40 something years he has been ion vacation in Quebec for the summer a few days before going back up north he fell sick he went to the hospital and they sent him to another hospital to get an emergency operation threw the whole time they were asking how they are going to get payed that it is going to cost nearly 40 thousand dollars how are they going to get payed. Over and over. It’s nearly a week in the hospital no operation and telling him he can go home but not travel anytime soon. I feel like they are discriminating him because he is from the north. I called a few numbers today and one lady said not to worry that health care will pay and for him not to get treatment is very wrong. I am going to ask the hospitals for his files. I made this story short but I am so frustrated what if something happens to him help.