The emergency room door of the Saint-Jérôme regional hospital opens on a row of stretchers. A dozen patients are installed in a narrow corridor. ” Pay attention ! An elderly lady, her hospital gown partly undone, points to the floor, looking desolate. She just vomited. The floor is soiled. You have to take a stride to avoid the damage.
Although the political parties have multiplied promises in the field of health since the beginning of the election campaign, the situation remains critical in the hospitals of the Laurentians.
On this last day of August, the corridors of the emergency room of the Saint-Jérôme hospital are populated by patients lying on stretchers or sitting in rocking chairs.
Here, a woman curled up, her face turned towards the wall, tries to rest despite the neon lights and the incessant comings and goings. There, an elder, a little deaf and confused, receives the diagnosis from his doctor. His relatives surround him. His “corridor neighbours” heard everything.
These scenes are shocking, but are part of everyday life in the Saint-Jérôme emergency room. “And today is a good day! » says the DD Véronique Gauthier, co-head of the emergency department.
When passing the To have to last Wednesday around noon, the occupancy rate was 136%. It jumped to 160% a few hours later. Many patients were waiting for a hospital bed on the floors.
The DD Chloé Jamaty, co-head of the emergency department, can no longer take this hallway medicine. “Our patients are often treated, against our will, in a way that does not respect their dignity,” she laments. In this hospital, patients are parked in the corridors almost constantly.
The emergency physician is sorry that elderly people with loss of autonomy are forced to urinate in a portable urinal in full view. “If an attendant is there, they’ll bring a curtain on wheels, but often patients don’t wait for the attendant because they don’t even have a bell to call them and they’re stuck in the raised sides of the stretcher “, explains the DD Jamaty.
There is a lack of space in the Saint-Jérôme emergency room. At such a point, reports the DD Gauthier, that patients must “regularly” sit for several hours on examination tables in assessment rooms, while waiting to obtain a stretcher in the emergency room, then a bed on the upper floors. Physicians are then less efficient: they cannot assess patients in the cubicles normally reserved for this purpose.
The Dr Yves Pesant, who has practiced for 40 years at the Saint-Jérôme hospital, says he is “ashamed” that patients are “stacked in the emergency department in corridors” and hospitalized in four-bed rooms — The duty saw several on the floors.
“It complicates medical treatment,” says the internal medicine specialist. Patients struggle to sleep when a “roommate” snores or makes noises at night. “You have to give them sleeping pills. »
The Dr Pesant assures that patients receive “exceptional” medical care at the Saint-Jérôme hospital. But the conditions of stay for patients, and of practice for doctors, are “unacceptable”, according to him.
An electoral debate on health
The three doctors interviewed by The duty challenge the candidates of the various political parties. They are calling for an improvement to the hospital modernization project, included in the Quebec Infrastructure Plan in 2018.
Phase 1 of the $450 million project provides “nothing” for the emergency, they are indignant. The envelope is intended to modernize surgical services, including the operating room, and to develop a 250-space parking lot.
“We will build that in maybe three or four years. What will this money represent? [450 millions] in 2026? It’s nothing,” says the Dr Pesant, treasurer of the Association of Physicians and Professionals for the Advancement of Saint-Jérôme Regional Hospital (AMPAHRSJ), which brings together approximately 335 physicians.
The Coalition Santé Laurentides also wants the five political parties to speak out on this subject during the campaign. The group, made up of elected officials, doctors and users, will organize an electoral debate between local candidates on September 13 at the Cégep de Saint-Jérôme.
“The commitment we are asking for is financial catch-up [pour la région] says Marc L’Heureux, president of the Coalition and prefect of the MRC des Laurentides.
He argues that the region’s population has doubled over the past 30 years and that hospitals have not been adapted accordingly. According to the Coalition, between $1.4 billion and $1.9 billion is needed to upgrade the outdated hospital infrastructure in the Laurentians.
“Health spending per capita in Montreal is $3,996, $3,592 in Quebec City and $1,904 in the Laurentians! adds the Dr Weighing. An “injustice”, he says, towards the citizens of the Laurentians, like those of Mont-Laurier.
Problem accessing Mont-Laurier
Nearly 200 kilometers separate Mont-Laurier from Saint-Jérôme. Two hours of hilly road, lined with forests, fields and pastures. A less bucolic path when it has to be taken out of necessity for health care.
“Every time you need something, you have to go to the hospital in Saint-Jérôme or outside the region,” laments Suzie Mielke, a resident of Mont-Laurier, met near the local CLSC. .
The 64-year-old woman must take her 86-year-old mother to the Saint-Jérôme hospital so that she can undergo examinations or receive cortisone injections. “The price of gasoline has become quite expensive,” says the former cook’s helper in forestry camps. Often you have a meal to eat. So it becomes very expensive for us, health care. »
Suzie Mielke has yet to decide who she will vote for. When The duty met her, only the caquiste and outgoing deputy, Chantale Jeannotte, had put up posters in Mont-Laurier. Before the election was called, all the ridings in the Laurentians were held by the Coalition avenir Québec.
“We are waiting impatiently to see if a candidate will offer us something that will solve the problem. [de l’accès aux soins de santé] says Suzie Mielke, holding her great-grandson in her arms.
For Claude Therrien, the question of access to health care goes beyond the simple electoral issue. “I don’t care who comes to power! says, exasperated, the 71-year-old retiree, driving his parked Jeep. Citizens, he believes, should have access to a doctor when they need it. “In the region, there is no possibility of having a consultation without an appointment unless you win at 6/49! »
At the Mont-Laurier hospital, the problems have gotten worse in recent years, according to Dr.r Francis Paquette, head of intensive care. In addition to losing specialties such as pulmonology, pediatrics and ophthalmology, the hospital center has seen its bed capacity go from 60 beds to 32 beds and even 28, he says.
Since the pandemic, emergency coexists with intensive care. “It creates a ground floor that is extremely disorganized,” says the Dr Package. The intensive care rooms are scattered around the unit. An emergency stretcher, intended for a patient with a mental health problem, is in front of the intensive care station.
“We don’t have enough staff to bring intensive care back to where it was before, at 3e floor, because there was an exodus of 16 critical care nurses [urgence et soins intensifs] “, explains the D.r Package.
According to him, it is necessary to renovate the ground floor, where the emergency and intensive care are located, “in order to treat more and better”. However, the modernization project authorized by Quebec in 2018 plans to expand and redevelop the hospital’s short-term care unit as well as the pharmacy. Multiple rooms will be transformed into single rooms.
The Dr Paquette regrets that this plan providing for “a major investment of more than 50 million dollars, the largest ever granted to the Mont-Laurier hospital”, misses its target. “We want investments in operational services, not in rooms,” he says.
We must expand the outpatient clinics, he continues, in order to repatriate the “specialties that have deserted”. Vulnerable patients will no longer have to travel 250 km to obtain services at the Saint-Jérôme hospital, which is already overwhelmed.