(Quebec) The father of the ambulatory shift, drug insurance and the National Institute of Public Health, former Minister of Health Jean Rochon, died Monday at the age of 83.
Prime Minister François Legault’s office has been informed of his death in recent hours.
Under the government of Lucien Bouchard, Mr. Rochon undertook a health reform, the ambulatory shift. The objective was to avoid going to the hospital and to rely more on front-line services such as CLSCs and home care. But this reform has not been completed and investments for the first line have not been made. The PQ government then favored a zero deficit.
As minister, he created the drug insurance and passed a law governing the use of tobacco in public places in 1998. It was under his leadership that the National Institute of Public Health was created.
Born in Montreal in 1938, Mr. Rochon comes from a modest family; her father was a tank top. He obtained a law degree from the University of Montreal in 1961, then he graduated in medicine from Laval University in 1966. He had a master’s degree in public health (1968) and a doctorate in the same field of l ‘Harvard University (1973). He worked among others at the Center hospitalier de l’Université Laval and in the medical department of this institution, as dean of faculty, among others.
He was elected under the banner of the Parti Québécois in Charlesbourg, in 1994. He was Minister of Health until the end of 1998. He was subsequently notably Minister of Labor, Employment and Solidarity social. He left political life in 2003.
“I have just learned of the death of my former colleague Jean Rochon. What sad news. He was a kind and brilliant man. I have a thought for his loved ones and his family, ”reacted Prime Minister François Legault on social networks.
For the PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, “this great man will have marked the history of Quebec by daring to attack the tobacco lobby and for having started the decentralization of the health system”.