The Legault government announces an investment of $200 million to renovate the Hôpital du Suroît, located in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. The emergency will be modernized and expanded to reach an area exceeding 9000 square meters. The management of the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest hopes that the work will be completed in 2025.
Beauharnois MP Claude Reid made the announcement on behalf of Health and Social Services Minister Christian Dubé. He was accompanied by the member for Soulanges, Marilyne Picard, and the member for Huntingdon, Claire IsaBelle.
During the press conference, Claude Reid indicated that the work carried out in the emergency room aims to “compensate for the generalized lack of space” and “improve the organization with a view to better prevention of infections and management of the clientele”. The redesigned emergency will have the same number of stretchers, 32.
“It’s the configuration that will change,” said the president and CEO of the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest, Philippe Gribeauval, recalling that patients have no place in the corridors.
Philippe Gribeauval was delighted with this “colossal” investment in the Hôpital du Suroît. The last major expansion dates back to 1982. “The emergency needed this space, needed that we could receive the population in facilities worthy of the name and we will be able to do it,” he said. . He believes that these new infrastructures will help attract staff.
“I wish she [l’urgence] opens long before the new hospital [de Vaudreuil-Soulanges] for obvious reasons, he added. Concretely, what we are aiming for is 2025. Everyone tells me that this is a very ambitious deadline. But if we don’t aim for it, we won’t get there. »
The emergency room at the Hôpital du Suroît experienced a crisis last September. The hospital center had to close its outpatient services for 16 hours due to a lack of staff and high traffic. In 2021-2022, the emergency room recorded one of the worst scores in Quebec: its average length of stay on a stretcher was 32 hours and 36 minutes, compared to an average of 16 hours 45 minutes in Quebec, according to data obtained from the Department of Health and Social Services.
The situation has since improved, according to Dominique Pilon, director of hospital activities at the Suroît hospital. In a press briefing, he pointed out that 30 patients were on stretchers on Monday at 2 p.m., compared to 52 on the same date last year.
Further work is planned as part of this $200 million investment. The building will have a glass facade and the medical device reprocessing unit will be refurbished by May 2023.