Zainab Al-Mehdar
Shawville Dec 1, 2021
Driving 160 km/hr, not knowing if they will make it to the hospital in time, towels in the back in case they had to stop and deliver their baby boy on the side of the highway. Jessica McGuire, like many mothers, had to travel an hour outside Shawville to give birth since the closure of the obstetrics unit here at the Pontiac Hospital is still ongoing.
What was supposed to be a six-month temporary closure of the unit has lasted for almost a year following the official closure in February 2020.
In an email statement, Marie-Pier Després CISSSO’s Media Relations Agent said, “When the service was closed, we wanted to be able to reopen as soon as we had enough nursing resources to do so. It was therefore not possible to determine a precise date of reopening considering that we are dependent on nursing recruitment.”
Back here in Shawville McGuire, who works at Pontiac High School and is a mother of three, felt stressed thinking about having to transfer doctors at 36 weeks from Pontiac Hospital to Pembroke Hospital. The experience for her was a bit impersonal because she couldn’t build rapport with her doctor, “I just found you didn’t really connect,” she said. Owing to her early delivery at 38 weeks, she only got to meet with her new doctor at Pembrooke Hospital twice.
McGuire, who had already delivered two of her boys at the Pontiac Hospital, said with her third baby she felt stressed out as her due date was approaching. Being familiar with her previous labours and how quick they were, she talked to her doctor. With her previous two deliveries, she was at ease because she lived close by to the hospital and knew she would be met with doctors and nurses at the obstetrics unit when she went into labour.
With the news of the closure, like many concerned pregnant women, McGuire said “I just started thinking ‘Oh my gosh’ Am I actually going to make it to any other hospital in the area?”
An already stressful situation and the uncertainties of childbirth, layered with travelling to a different hospital while also worrying about the possibility of delivering your baby on the side of the road, made matters worse for the Shawville couple. “I found because we rushed there we were driving so fast, and then rushing trying to get in once the baby was born. I just said ‘I don’t even know where I am’,” she said. “It was scary.”
Will other departments shut down?
A concern that McGuire highlighted was how serious the closures were to the survival of the rest of the hospital. Could it mean more departments losing more staff? “It really makes me stop and think about what other departments might be going through sort of the same thing, but you’re just not aware of yet,” she said.
Coming from a predominantly English-speaking town such as Shawville, McGuire said that concern she and some mothers had was the language barrier they might face at a Gatineau Hospital, “They’re not always comfortable going to Gatineau because they feel like they might not get adequate care in English,” she said.
Bringing the issues to the forefront is a local advocacy group that has been around for a long time in Shawville. They promote issues they find important in the community. Beryl Smart and a team of women who are part of the only two chapters left here in Shawville brought to light the difficulties arising from the closed obstetrics unit on Nov 24 at the MRC Pontiac council meeting.
The local group has started a petition and approached the MRC for their support. The group plans to circulate the petition around town to get enough signatures and later hope to present it to the National Assembly of Gatineau.
When asked why this issue was important to bring in front of the council, Smart said, “It’s important to new mothers and families, and many things can happen between here and Pembroke.”
She is hoping Premier François Legault will take the matter seriously and do something about increasing wages to get more nurses and doctors in the area.
What CISSO Plans on doing to restore the Obstetrics unit
Currently, the obstetrics unit has three trained nurses but for the department to function at full capacity it would take 12 nurses to be able to run the unit safely.
The major cause of the closure is the nurse shortage that Pontiac is currently experiencing, and that has put tremendous stress on its community. All of the uncertainty around reopening of the unit has left mothers feeling hopeless. “I just didn’t realize how fortunate we are to have [the hospital] right there. So, I would love for it to be open just so no one else has to go through the same thing. It’s very stressful and overwhelming,” said McGuire.
When The Equity asked CISSSO what they are doing to increase hiring efforts and support mothers in the community Després said they are working on implementing a hybrid model and offering pregnant women a choice between a medical delivery or being monitored and delivered by midwives. The made the announcement concerning these options on August of 2020.
“We have our first midwife who started working in the Pontiac this week. This does not allow us to reopen the service yet, but it does give expectant mothers an opportunity to have their pregnancy monitored in their own community,” said Després.
In addition, CISSSO mentioned they are working with community stakeholders to initiate retention efforts and draw in qualified and professional talent to the hospital. This includes making approaches to midwifery educators as well as working with institutions to open internship opportunities at the Pontiac Hospital for next fall “to increase our attractiveness in the area so that interns will want to work there,” Després said in an email.
If Pontiac Hospital loses too many crucial services, Shawville won’t be able to attract people especially young families said McGuire. “It just sort of takes away from all the greatness that we have,” she said with a sigh.
