Complaints
If you need help with a complaint process, you can find sample letters to denounce funding cuts to the Soutien aux familles program and the excessive delays in obtaining services under the Individual/Collective Human Rights Advocacy section on our web site.
As a user of services in the health and social services system, the only quality control mechanism is the complaint process.
If you have not received services you were entitled to or if the services received were of poor quality, making a complaint is the only way to make your voice heard on the subject. It is also the process by which the situation may be corrected. Because public organisations have to keep a record of complaints and publish their number every year, the process is very useful to bring change in the system and denounce problems.
Process
In every public organisation, a person is in charge or complaints and has to accept any complaint lodged against the organisation. A complaint is not a personal attack against an individual but rather a way to make a problematic situation known. The organisation has 45 days to verify the validity of the complaint and make a formal answer to the person who lodged the complaint. A complaint can be made in writting, by phone or in a formal meeting. A complaint should describe your child’s situation and the problem as well as state a clear demand to correct the current situation. It happens sometime that there is no answer, as in the case of waiting lists for example, but you have to voice the problem. If you are invited to a meeting, make sure someone goes with you.
