2024-2025 Annual Report — Health and social services: communication must be at the core of the interventions

  • October 2, 2025
Corps

Québec City, October 2, 2025 – The Ombudsperson, Marc-André Dowd, tabled the 2024-2025 Annual Report of the Protecteur du citoyen today at the National Assembly.

Shortage of trained and available staff, lack of time, reduction of empathy and compassion: the health and social services network is running out of steam under pressure. As a result, communication too often is broken between users and their loved ones, on the one hand, and the health and social services network, on the other.

“Due to a lack of resources, the staff are led to concentrate on the duties to be performed, such that it raises concerns for the health and social services provided. However, it remains essential to establish a bond of trust with the users, listen to them and maintain respectful and attentive communication. Some care environments have strayed away from these priorities,” Marc-André Dowd declared.

Listening to users attentively

Helping the caregivers

The considerable contribution of caregivers is increasingly recognized, and the public care and services network would have difficulty to do without these allies.

“Some caregivers report to the Protecteur du citoyen that they are excluded by the staff to some extent. It is of the utmost importance to obtain and value the collaboration of caregivers by consulting them and making a place for them on the care team. The Act to recognize and support caregivers specifically exists to consider their active presence throughout their caregiving journey,” the Ombudsperson reminded us.

Follow-up of the Viens Commission: youth protection in Indigenous communities

The Protecteur du citoyen has the mandate to assess the implementation of the calls to action of the Public Inquiry Commission on Relations between Indigenous Peoples and Certain Public Services in Québec: Listening, Reconciliation and Progress (Viens Commission).

In 2024-2025, in co-construction with the Advisory Circle – composed of representatives of First Nations and Inuit organizations – the Protecteur du citoyen worked on its next follow-up report, which will focus on youth protection in Indigenous communities. More specifically, 13 calls to action concerning the placement journey of First Nations and Inuit children and youth will be the subject of a more advanced analysis by the Protecteur du citoyen. The publication of the report will be announced in a timely manner. Parallel to this process, a follow-up document will be published in fall 2025 and will shed light on new factors to consider in the overall follow-up of implementation of the calls to action, particularly in relation to the other public services addressed by the Viens Commission.

“We recommend that the public services listen to the First Nations and Inuit citizens. We must therefore undertake to do likewise regarding our own services. We are working to build relationships of trust and to progress to better consideration of Indigenous realities within the Protecteur du citoyen,” the Ombudsperson declared.

Let us remember that the Protecteur du citoyen impartially and independently ensures that people’s rights are respected in their dealings with public services. Its services are free and easy to access.

For all information on the 2024-2025 Annual Report of the Protecteur du citoyen, go to the Annual Reports section of our website.

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Information:
Carole-Anne Huot, person in charge of media relations
Phone: 418 646-7143/Cell: 418 925-7994
Email: medias@protecteurducitoyen.qc.ca


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