A Quebec woman who claims that she paid a doctor $2,000 to expedite surgery for her cancer-stricken mother is raising questions about whether bribery is being practiced in the province's health-care system.

Vivian Green said she was doing what she had to in an effort to save her elderly mother, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after she developed a pain in her side.

"When you're desperate you don't care who you bump and how sick they are," Green told CTV News. "I was desperate."

So she approached a doctor at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, who she says accepted the $2,000 and then returned it. Green then offered the money to a second doctor at the city's Royal Victoria Hospital who accepted it, she alleges.

The operation was eventually performed by another doctor and could not save her mother's life.

But Green says she's not alone in offering cash to doctors for better service. Other patients have paid doctors thousands of dollars to ensure they're available to deliver their babies or to provide preferential treatment, she says.

"Envelopes are profuse, cash is profuse for those who can afford to rescue their lives," Green said.

Her allegations are making waves in the province's medical community.

The office of Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc issued a statement urging anyone with information about bribery in the province's health-care system to report it to the Quebec College of Physicians.

"If this practice does exist it is completely unacceptable," the minister's office said.

Dr. Paul Saba, president of the Coalition for Physicians for Social Justice, admitted that in the past he has been offered cash to have a patient jump the queue. But he refused the offer.

"I'm not surprised," he said of Green's story. "But it's regrettable. People are feeling desperate."

The head of Quebec's Council for the Protection of the Sick, Paul Brunet, said while he hopes that bribery doesn't happen often, it's inevitable.

He chalked up the Green's allegations to "the problem of shortage" in Quebec's health-care system.

Other medical specialists saw the bribery allegations differently.

"It's disgusting," said Dr. Gaetan Barrette, president of the Quebec Federation of Specialists. "This is totally unacceptable."

Barette said he has never witnessed doctors being paid to expedite a patient's treatment, and warned that doctors who accept cash incentives can have their licence suspended.

The network of hospitals to which Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital belongs, McGill University Health Centre, said it "expects professional conduct from all staff and doctors within the institution."

"This includes avoiding potential conflict of interest with respect to offers of cash or gifts," it said in a statement.

Meanwhile Montreal's Jewish General Hospital said its administration "has not received any complaint about a physician's conduct with respect to preferential treatment because of gifts of cash.

"Such conduct is unacceptable. If any such complaint were received, it would be referred to the local council of physicians and when appropriate, to the Quebec College of Physicians."

With a report from CTV Montreal's Caroline Van Vlaardingen and CTV's Genevieve Beauchemin