Towards COP15 | The CHUM is preparing “for any eventuality”

The University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM) is preparing for “all eventualities” for COP15, including the “worst-case scenario”. Certain accesses to the hospital will be reviewed and, in the event of an emergency, care corridors and ambulance diversion plans are in place. Additional security guards have also been hired in recent days.

“Our biggest concern is especially the demonstrations or marches that could happen unexpectedly around our perimeter, which would slow down access to care settings,” says the director of communications of the CHUM, Irène Marcheterre, in interview with The Press. His group also asks the organizers to “respect the access corridor to the hospital, in order to be able to take care of the patients who will need it”.

For the rest, the hospital center ensures that it has “increased its level of preparation” for COP15, which will bring up to 15,000 delegates between December 7 and 19.

A crisis unit, set up at the end of October, has already determined all the measures to be taken, based on recent examples such as the student crisis of 2012 or the major climate demonstration in September 2019.

“We have added a team of security agents with officers and event agents who will be able to move from one entrance to another, depending on the events. We are talking about a dozen more officers at first, but we could add more, ”says the coordinator for emergency measures and security at the CHUM, Josée Rondeau.

Several road flaggers will also be added to the staff of the hospital center, in addition to the Montreal police, in order to help it adapt the routes of the ambulances in the event of obstacles. “We also assessed the worst-case scenario, namely if all our trajectories are compromised. There would then be care corridors activated with other hospitals, and diversions of ambulances to continue to treat the clientele,” insists Ms.^me Rondeau.

An idea of ​​the obstacles

The main accesses to the hospital, Sanguinet and Saint-Denis streets, will be maintained, but the secondary entrances should be blocked for security reasons. The tunnel giving access to the CHUM, at the Champ-de-Mars metro exit, will be closed for the duration of COP15, as will the Place-d’Armes station, which will be completely closed from 1^er to December 21.

If the demonstrations were to lead, for example, to René-Lévesque Boulevard, “we will be able to continue to access the south of the hospital”, assures M^me Rondeau.

In internal notices, CHUM management will also issue certain recommendations to its employees in the coming days. On the clinical level, in particular, teleconsultation will be favored as much as possible. “We did it during the pandemic, we know that it works very well for certain specialties. This will be put forward, ”recalls Irène Marcheterre on this subject.

It also reminds employees and other external actors that it will be important “to have their access card at all times to access the doors that will be locked”, in order to facilitate circulation within the hospital complex.

“We have learned a lot from COVID-19. Not only are we equipped to telecommute, but we have also reinvented ourselves in our ways of doing things. For our contingency plans, we therefore took up a little of what we had learned from this pandemic”, breathes Josée Rondeau.

Remember that several obstacles are planned in the coming weeks in downtown Montreal. Large fences will cut off one lane of traffic in each of the streets surrounding the meeting place, including the Viger, Saint-Urbain, Saint-Antoine axes, as well as Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle. Several anti-capitalist and environmentalist demonstrations are also planned between December 7 and 10.

To date, thousands of students have notably given themselves a strike mandate, judging that the COPs “aim to make us believe that our elected officials have their hands on the wheel, when they are making no effort” to address the climate crisis. Some associations have even called for “blocking” the holding of the international event. The COP15 collective is also organizing a large gathering on December 10.