Jorge Maria
Pontiac July 7, 2021
After closing for several days, Gatineau’s emergency facility opened its doors to some patients under its new reopening plan.
The ER is open, but it is only open for pregnant women, children under 17 and for emergency mental health services. For all other services, the ER has been closed indefinitely. Patients are urged to use the urgent care facility of Papineau Hospital or Hull Hospital.
Gatineau Hospital is the fourth-largest hospital in Quebec and the closing of its urgent care services caused shockwaves throughout the medical system in Western Quebec, leading to overflows while increasing stress on other emergency rooms including those in Papineau and Hull.
Pontiac MNA André Fortin expressed concern over the ongoing crisis.
“That specific emergency room [is] the largest one in the region. It’s not normal, it’s not acceptable,” Fortin said. “The government has to look for solutions.”
According to Fortin, the hospital “Lost 14 nurses over the last two weeks.”
While reasons are varied, “some nurses may have wanted more stable work conditions while others left the profession completely,” nurses leaving the province for other opportunities is still a top concern.
Fortin believes a lot of health care professionals felt an obligation to their patients and the community due to the pandemic. The pandemic is easing so he thinks “[nurses] are taking a step back and looking at what it is precisely that they want to do and where they want to practice and how they want to practice,” he said.
There is a pronounced salary discrepancy between nurses in Ontario and Quebec. “So it’s hard to blame the nurses who make that choice,” Fortin said. “But it’s on the shoulders of government to find solutions.”
