The Liberal MP for Pontiac, André Fortin, castigated the government of François Legault and his minister Christian Dubé for their management of the crisis at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, which according to him reflects “the incompetence caquiste” in matters of health.
“After five years of CAQ government, not only has the emergency situation not improved, but our health system is cracking everywhere. It is a dismal failure of the minister and a crisis of leadership, as he refuses to get directly involved when problems arise,” he said in a statement released Tuesday morning.
According to the official opposition spokesperson for health, “the closure of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont emergency room had been foreseeable for months and is another demonstration of the CAQ’s inefficiency”, especially since the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, “refused to hear the call for help from the nurses and to act before the crisis broke out”.
“The result of all this incompetence is, according to the nurses themselves, the endangerment of the lives of patients”, hammered the elected official.
Remember that the emergency room at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont reopened at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning after a night of reduced activity. The evening shift nurses had refused a contingency plan proposed by management that would have forced them to work in small teams.
The situation, attributable to the lack of staff, has been “untenable” since the end of December, it has been reported.
The emergency nurses denounce the imposition of compulsory overtime (TSO); more than 90 of the approximately 115 nurses also demanded the resignation of the head of unit through a petition on Friday.
A meeting between the senior management of the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal and the nurses is scheduled for Wednesday. Already several workers have threatened to resign en bloc
The deputy for Rosemont and spokesperson for health, Vincent Marissal, should also comment on the crisis that is shaking the hospital establishment at the start of the afternoon.
On the airwaves of Radio-Canada, the spokesperson for Quebec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, declared “that it makes absolutely no sense that we close an emergency in Montreal in 2023”. The MP for Gouin denounced the structural problems observed at the hospital and called for “strong government intervention”.
Minister Dubé meanwhile indicated that he would take stock of the situation on Tuesday. The president and CEO of the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-Montréal, Jean-François Fortin Verreault, should also speak in the middle of the day.
The occupancy rate at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont was 117% Tuesday noon, according to Index Santé.
Another crisis in Jonquière
The situation is also critical in other hospitals in Quebec. At the Jonquière Hospital, emergency nurses carried out a “sit-in” of about thirty minutes in the morning on Tuesday, reported Radio-Canada.
They thus denounced the work overload caused by the high occupancy rate, calculated at 131% Tuesday noon, and by the lack of staff. The establishment’s health care workers want an inspector from the Standards, Equity, Health and Safety Commission (CNESST) to look into their situation in order to obtain working conditions. safe, adds the television network.
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This dispatch was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for the news.