Health committee  Yes, I would be interested in that. That is a key exercise we must all carry out. I don't want to disparage anyone, and we ourselves have used short-term solutions in our cardiac surgery work, including by bringing in doctors from abroad. But those are reactive and temporary solutions, and we need substantive ones.

Health committee  Thank you for your question. Your analysis of the situation is good. As my colleague from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada mentioned, all the pandemic did was expose pre-existing problems, such as waiting lists. At the beginning of the pandemic, we saw that cardiology and cardiac surgery patients tended not to access the health care system out of fear of ending up in hospitals.

Health committee  That's true for our environment, yes, but if I compare speech pathologist rates in Canada with those in the United States, the difference is ridiculous. So if there was planning and an identification of needs, standards and benchmarks to determine that we need a certain number of speech pathologists per 1,000 inhabitants, and so on, if we had forecasts, we could at least try to reduce the gap between the current number and the desirable number of speech pathologists for all Canadians.

Health committee  Thank you so much for having me this afternoon to speak on a very important subject for the health care system in Canada. As mentioned before, I'm the president of Quebec's association of cardiac surgeons. I'm professor of surgery at the University of Montreal. I've been a cardiac surgeon for 25 years, so I've been exposed pretty much to the system day in day out.

Health committee  In the province of Quebec, basically, in the first wave, the capacity for heart surgery went down to almost 20%. You are right—100% of our patients do have a stay in the ICU. For most of them, it is a short stay. I'd say that for around 60% or two-thirds it is only 24 hours, but they do need it acutely.

Health committee  Earlier, you mentioned prevention. Primary prevention, which is to prevent the disease from occurring, has been put on hold. Secondary prevention, which aims to reduce recurrence, has obviously been relegated to second or third place, given the current situation. This has long-term consequences.

Health committee  Exactly. The patients on the waiting lists are the tip of the iceberg. There are definitely delays in testing procedures. Cardiologists have noticed that patients don't show up. So we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now.

Health committee  We are currently trying to get an estimate. The exact number is hard to say.

Health committee  On waiting lists, obviously, we monitor them, and one is too many, but around the province of Quebec, we can say that there are a couple in each of the centres.

Health committee  We're talking probably dozens, ballpark. What we definitely know, what we've analyzed, is that the number of people usually showing up, let's say for a heart attack, has been going down quite a bit. Some of the people, if they die at home, we never know whether....

Health committee  Absolutely. Let me make another point. We sometimes think of cardiovascular patients as being retired or not working. Many of our patients, especially with the increase in risk factors, such as obesity, are young and of working age. If these people are not seen in time, and if we can't get them back to an optimal functional level, they will become dependent, which will affect their quality of life.

Health committee  I think it's risky and misses the point. We already know what the consequences will be for patients who do not have COVID-19 if we do nothing for this majority. I hope I have described them well in my statement. There are many COVID-19 patients, but they are still a minority compared to all the other patients who suffer from cancers and cardiovascular diseases, among others.

Health committee  You are welcome.

Health committee  I hope I've made that point clearly: the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the shutdown or lack of access to the health care system. The more waves—and the longer the pandemic continues—the more long-term the consequences will be. Catching up on necessary procedures may take several years if funds are not urgently provided.

Health committee  I am also comfortable speaking in English. Let's do it in English. Thank you for having me at this meeting. As the chair said, I'm the president of the Quebec association of cardiac surgeons. I've been there for three years. I have been a practising surgeon at the Montreal Heart Institute for the last 25 years.