[Health services priorities in Quebec].

The reform of health services in Quebec, of which the most important stage was the creation of the Department of Social Affairs and the Quebec Health Insurance Board, has solved certain problems such as the inaccessibility to care because of the cost, the paucity of medical personnel and the excessive increase in the cost of the services offered to hospital patients. A critical analysis of both the reform and its practical consequences points to certain conclusions which, far from rejecting the principle of the reform, indicate none the less various possibilities for reorienting its priorities. Observing the rate of recourse to health services as well as the attitudes and conduct of health professionals have helped us to identify the causes of certain tendencies inspired by the incentives inherent in the reform. The organization of health services in Quebec must be oriented toward new priorities: the prevention and treatment both of environmental diseases and diseases associated with ageing plus the definition of a global approach to public health.