The only historically French-speaking hospital in western Montreal, the Lachine hospital might be converted to more actively develop its ambulatory care. The McGill University Health Center (MUHC), responsible for the establishment, is currently studying two scenarios, including that of relying more on clinics for the monitoring of chronic diseases.
“We’ve had trouble maintaining services in Lachine for four years,” says MUHC Deputy President and CEO Martine Alfonso. This affirms that “work is in progress” to fix the future of the Lachine hospital. We are trying to determine what the needs are in order to be able to maintain the institution’s vocation as a community hospital. “We are also looking at the possibility of a plan number two. To make it a more ambulatory centre,” she says. Under this scenario, patients who would be hospitalized would be clinically more stable.
This plan was presented to the Lachine hospital teams on Thursday. According to two sources present in the room, the dissatisfaction was palpable. The Dr Paul Saba, who has been fighting for years to preserve services at the Lachine hospital, deplores the fact that the mission of this important establishment, among other things for the French-speaking clientele of the west of Montreal, is constantly threatened.
According to him, “the studies have already been done for 17 years and the conclusion is the same”. Or the Lachine hospital must remain a community hospital.
In November 2021, the Council of Dentists and Pharmacists of the Lachine Hospital passed a resolution with the support of 89% of the members to preserve the community mission of the establishment, in which the government has invested 200 years in recent years. million dollars for renovations.
Only day operations
Last week, the MUHC announced a “reorganization of services” for the Lachine hospital, explaining that these changes were necessary in particular for lack of personnel. Among other things, we announced a partial closure of the emergency room. 1
The MUHC also planned that, starting February 20, only one-day operations would be performed in Lachine. This request made the surgeons of the establishment jump. Five or six complex operations are performed every week in Lachine, such as bariatric procedures, general surgery and urology reconstructions. Surgeons lamented the lack of alternatives for their patients who would see their operation postponed.
Faced with these protests, the MUHC finally decided to keep its surgical activities intact for the week of February 20. Butme Alfonso acknowledges this: “There is nothing certain following February 27 at 11:59 p.m..”
For now, the proposed solution is that doctors wishing to perform complex operations in Lachine following February 27 can do so only if they can guarantee to be physically present themselves throughout their patient’s hospital stay. However, this care must be done on a voluntary basis.
Already, last week, the Dre Ngoc-Van Nguyen, general surgeon, said she feared that the Lachine hospital would eventually be condemned to perform “only day surgeries”.
Mme Alfonso assures that all options will be analyzed in order to keep the community hospital vocation of the Lachine hospital. “But if it’s not possible, we’ll see,” she said. A decision is expected by the end of April.
With the collaboration of Fanny Lévesque, The Press
This text has been modified to specify that the second scenario for the Lachine hospital plans to develop ambulatory care more actively, but to still maintain hospital beds for more stable patients.