Our history

More than 20 years of networking…

The committee was first set up in 1997 and worked closely with the health and social services network for almost 15 years. During that time, it wrote numerous letters expressing its concerns to the regional health network, but also to national authorities. It provided relevant information to the health community directly from the field and produced four opinions: a proposal for the regional organisation of the Québec breast cancer screening program (1998); an opinion on the impact of the ambulatory shift on women (2000); an opinion on women and their mental health (2002) and an opinion on the hyper sexualisation of girls and young women (2010).

The committee was unfortunately disbanded when the Agency became an Integrated Centre in March 2015. However, the organisations and individuals who sat on it have always refused to see this forum disappear. As a result, they maintained a link that enabled them to remain actively mobilised and facilitate the committee’s re-establishment in 2019.

Since its official reconstitution, the committee has produced several important documents: a fact sheet on access to the abortion pill in the Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine region (2020); a training proposal for CISSS de la Gaspésie staff (2021); and a status report on the implementation of midwifery services in GÎM (2021).