Julien St-Jean

Shawville Sept. 14, 2021 

Data sourced from CISSSO shows that of the 3,740 Outaouais babies born between November 2020 and June 2021, a total of 1143, roughly 30 per cent of them, were born in Ontario hospitals. 

That same data states that only one baby was born in the Pontiac Hospital in that same period of time. Comparatively, in the year before, 83 babies had been born in the hospital in 2019-2020, with 117 born there the year before.

For much of the last year, the obstetrics department at the Pontiac hospital has been closed. As a result, Pontiacers from areas such as Fort Coulonge must travel up to 120 kilometres to Gatineau hospital – where 2,348 Outaouais births took place – or across the border to Pembroke, a distance of roughly 45 kilometres.

At an August 27, presss conference on the decenetralization of healthcare, Warden Jane Toller criticized the 2015 “Barette reforms” for many of the region’s challenges with obstetrics care.

“Since the change of Law 10, there’s been a huge difference. Our obstetric department is closed. We can’t have babies in the Pontiac,” said Toller.