(Montreal) The emergency unit of the Lachine Hospital receives a sustained traffic of patients every night and yet the management of the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) has been claiming for months that the service is closed between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. h.
Since February 14, the MUHC has been posting a warning message on its web platforms to inform patients that “the emergency room at the Lachine Hospital will operate from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., seven days a week for ambulatory patients, or people arriving by their own means at the emergency room”.
It’s wrong.
In an interview with The Canadian Press earlier this week, the head of the Regional Department of General Medicine (DRMG) in Montreal, Dr.D Arianne Murray, mentioned that the emergency doctors of the hospital were present 24 hours a day and that they never stopped welcoming patients.
“The emergency has never been closed at night. We often hear that, but the doctors have always been there, she revealed. It was closed to ambulances, but as such, outpatients arrived 24/7. »
This information was confirmed with D.r Georges Zaarour, emergency physician and family doctor, who regularly works night shifts in Lachine.
“It’s not true that the emergency room is closed. It’s officially closed, but unofficially open, ”explains the one who only works at night at the Lachine emergency room.
He even adds that since the announcement of this “pseudo closure”, he no longer manages to see all the patients before the arrival of the morning team. With an average of 12 to 14 patients per night, the Dr Zaarour says he saw traffic jump to more than 28 patients.
According to the emergency physician, these are patients who arrive from Laval, the South Shore, Vaudreuil-Dorion because they see on the online dashboard of the Department of Health and Social Services that the rate of stretcher occupancy is much lower in Lachine.
repeated lies
In an internal memo sent to staff at the Lachine Hospital on Tuesday, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press, management wrote that after fears of having to close the emergency room this summer, it is “pleased to announce that it will be now possible to receive outpatients 24 hours a day, all summer long”.
However, in all of its public communications for the past four months, the MUHC has insisted that the emergency rooms already do not receive patients after 10 p.m.
It was through a press release, published on February 8, 2023, that the night closure of the Lachine emergency unit was first announced.
It could then be read that patients transported by ambulance would be redirected to other hospitals in the area as of February 14, 2023. Then, it was specified that “the emergency room of the Lachine Hospital will continue to operate from 8 a.m. h, seven days a week, for ambulatory patients, i.e. people arriving by their own means at the emergency room”.
In reality, this measure has never been applied.
A few months later, in a press release published on April 26, the MUHC reiterated the establishment’s status as a community hospital and announced that “the Lachine emergency department will gradually reopen over the next few months, to finally be able to to receive outpatients and ambulances 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.
This same press release was embellished with a quote attributed to the CEO of the MUHC, Dr.D Lucie Opatrny, in which she thanked “the staff, the patients and the population for their understanding and their collaboration”. “We will continue to be transparent at every step of improving MUHC services,” she added.
However, despite these promises of transparency, the emergency rooms supposedly closed to the population for 71 nights were still accessible to the local population in case of need.
Then, in a statement sent by email to The Canadian Press last week, the head of the communications department, Gilda Salomone, repeated that “the emergency room of the Lachine Hospital has been closed at night since February 14, 2023”. She added that “this measure will continue to be applied until September 25, 2023, that is to say that no patient who presents there from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. can be accepted”.
” Scandal ”
“It’s a scandal,” says Marquette MP Enrico Ciccone, who supported citizen mobilization to save the Lachine Hospital.
He says an elderly lady from his riding came to his office recently. In tears, she told him that she was forced to take a taxi to a hospital in downtown Montreal. After seeing the doctor, she was unable to go home for lack of money to afford another taxi ride.
The Liberal MP emphasizes that the community role of the hospital is to provide local services to a population that includes many people living in a precarious situation.
” This is unacceptable. The hospital is open 24 hours a day, but they don’t say so because they don’t want people to go there, let’s see! “, he continued, saying he was outraged by the behavior of the MUHC.
Requests for interviews from The Canadian Press with MUHC management have once again been refused.
An emailed statement maintains that the ER has been closed at night since Feb. 14, but “no patient was turned away if they showed up and insisted on staying past 10 p.m.” It adds that people are “encouraged to come back the next day or go to another clinic”.