Medical students meet in Quebec City to denounce Bill 20

About 1,000 of the province’s medical students protested in Quebec City on Monday against health care reforms they say would dehumanize family medicine.

• What's the difference between Bill 10, Bill 20 and Bill 28?
• Bill 20 alternatives proposed by Quebec family doctors
• Gaétan Barrette says Bill 20 won't limit abortion access

Students decked out in lab coats and stethoscopes from the medical schools at McGill University, University of Montreal, Laval University and University of Sherbrooke gathered at the National Assembly for their demonstration.

The students have distanced themselves from the anti-austerity student movement; rather, they are focused on speaking out against Bill 20, a sweeping health care reform bill that would impose a minimum number of patients that doctors would have to see.

Forcing doctors to set quotas would dehumanize family medicine, the students argue.

“Turning the doctor-patient relationship into a calculation, that goes against the values they teach us,” said Ariane Veilleux Carpentier, the president of the University of Montreal medical students association.

Health Minister Gaétan Barrette has gone to bat for Bill 20, saying that although more doctors are working and the government is investing more in the system, access to a doctor is more difficult.

Barrette has said that proves there's a need to make changes to the system.

Some students, like Laval University medical student association president Jessica Ruel-Laliberté, have said Bill 20 and other changes to family medicine are making them consider leaving the province to practice medicine.