Water damage disrupted the floor of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital birth unit for a few hours at the end of the day Thursday.
Flooded rooms and corridors on the seventh floor of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital Thursday evening complicated the task of the staff. The water damage occurred on the postpartum side of this floor which houses the birthing unit.
Around 4:30 p.m., a large quantity of water flooded the rooms and corridor of this section. Floors below would also have been affected. “The nurses worked with boots up to their knees,” testified a staff member met on site.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The incident, however, did not last long. The Fire Department was called to the scene to ensure the safety of the premises. On the way from The Press, by late evening, one room had been boarded up, but the rest of the facilities were operating as usual. Women giving birth were not affected by the event.
In the cruciform
This dilapidated section of the hospital, called the cruciform, must be destroyed in the context of an expansion of the hospital. More than 700 beds should be added in this crucial establishment for the entire eastern part of the island of Montreal.
At the end of April, the Minister of Health Christian Dubé announced that this vast project would not be done “in stages”, but in a single phase. The government must revise upwards its budgetary envelope of 2.5 billion planned for the project. Delivery of the new hospital is scheduled for 2030.
The staged scenario, which would have resulted in the maintenance of rooms in the most dilapidated part, called the cruciform, had created a stir internally, as revealed The Press in January. Mayor Valérie Plante then called it “worrying” for the population.
In March, a water leak in the emergency room of the same hospital led to the diversion of ambulances for an evening and the transfer of several patients.