Overwhelmed with patients, the emergency room of the Hôpital du Suroît in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield temporarily closed its doors overnight from Sunday to Monday for the least urgent cases, and diverted ambulances to a nearby hospital. Monday morning, the emergency room of the western Montérégie hospital had an occupancy rate of 203%. And 28 patients had been staying there for more than 48 hours.
Posted at 1:01 p.m.
During the night, posters were installed on the doors of the Suroît Hospital indicating a “temporary closure of the emergency room”. According to the president of the Union of Care Professionals of Montérégie-Ouest, Mélanie Gignac, there were “too many patients” this weekend in the emergency room. This is not the first time that this establishment has had to deal with a massive overflow in its emergencies.
Spokesperson for the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest, Jade St-Jean mentions that the posters were installed “without the authorization of a manager or management”. Mme St-Jean says the emergency “was not closed that night” and that the patients “were all triaged and continued to be seen in order of priority”. But she concedes that given the heavy traffic during the night, “people whose condition was considered non-urgent (P4-P5) were recommended to consider other alternatives to the emergency or to return to it. this morning to avoid having them wait long hours in the waiting room”. Mme St-Jean affirms that the situation, “although still difficult”, is “stabilized”.
A statement that shocks Mme Gignac. “Tonight, we should be 12 nurses and seven nursing assistants to cover the shift in the emergency room. But to date, only three nurses and four nursing assistants have been confirmed. How are we going to cover the evening shift? Two-thirds of the day nurses will have to stay? she asks.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Dominique Pilon
Director of hospital activities at the Hôpital du Suroît, Dominique Pilon acknowledges that the establishment experienced a “critical” situation last night which forced the diversion of ambulances to the Anna-Laberge Hospital, in Châteauguay, for three hours. . But according to him, the emergency room of the Suroît Hospital “was not closed at all”. Mr. Pilon attributes the installation of posters to a “misunderstanding with the staff”.
Mr. Pilon mentions that the crisis experienced in the Suroît is caused by “the shortage of manpower that we have known here for months at the Hôpital du Suroît, like our colleagues in Quebec”. “We are in big recruitment campaigns. We have just made offers, I think, very interesting to nurses. […] I have just made an individual call to 430 nurses who had left our organization in recent years to invite them to come back and tell them what improvements we have made,” he says.