The partial closure of the hospital’s emergency room and intensive care beds “will cause unprecedented harm to local citizens and overwhelm the already crowded emergency rooms on the island of Montreal,” writes Dr. Paul Saba in a letter. to the prime minister.
Article content
The head of the Lachine Hospital physician council is calling on Prime Minister François Legault’s government to pass a decree to prevent the partial closure of the hospital emergency room and intensive care beds for an indefinite period starting Sunday.
Commercial
This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
“These closures will cause unprecedented harm to local citizens and overwhelm the already crowded emergency rooms on the island of Montreal,” Dr. Paul Saba wrote in a letter sent to the prime minister on Friday.
“This is not about reorganization, but about disorganization.”
Beginning Sunday, the Lachine Hospital emergency room will be open daily from 7:30 a.m. M. At 7:30 p. M. Walk-ins only and will be closed overnight. Ambulances will be turned away at all times of the day. The closure will also affect the hospital’s two intensive care beds, which are connected to the emergency room.
The McGill University Health Center announced the partial closure a week ago. The temporary reduction in service is the result of a “critical shortage” of nurses and respiratory therapists, MUHC president and CEO Pierre Gfeller said at a news conference at the hospital on Oct. 29.
Commercial
This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
Gfeller said it expected the partial shutdown to last roughly through January.
“We ask you to pass a decree to keep the emergency room and intensive care open 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Saba’s letter to Legault read.
“This decree must include financial incentives of a salary premium of $ 15,000 per year for nurses and health workers in intensive care for at least two years and a 14 percent intensive care bonus that is (already) awarded to hospitals from the center who stole our medical care workers. This measure will cost the government about $ 200,000 per year for missing healthcare workers needed to keep the emergency room and intensive care at Lachine Hospital open. “
Saba has said that four of the respiratory therapists who left Lachine Hospital this year were lured in with the government’s intensive care bonus to work at the center.
Commercial
This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
Saba said in its letter to Legault that the announced partial closure has prompted nurses and other workers to leave Lachine Hospital.
“The only way to stop this bleeding is to keep the emergency room and intensive care open 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” the letter said, adding that closing the emergency room will undo a century of work. carried out by the francophone hospital for the community.
“Failure to do so would be a violation of his duty as prime minister and an abandonment of the disadvantaged Francophone community living in Lachine.”
-
The Lachine Hospital emergency room will reject ambulances and will close overnight starting November 7.
-
Lachine Hospital Staff Calls For More Workers To Avoid Reducing Emergency Room Hours
Reference-montrealgazette.com