A protest was held Saturday afternoon in front of Montreal’s Lachine Hospital after the McGill University Health Center, which is fueling a labor challenge, announced plans to close emergency and intensive care, in particular.
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Therefore, citizens, doctors, nurses and hospital staff are mobilizing to save the social profession of the hospital and demand that these hospital services should be accessible and open to the public.
“The care provided at this hospital is essential,” declares Shiaman Diawara, president of SECUSM. “It’s natural for people to be concerned because we don’t know where we’re going for the future of the emergency room and the future of the hospital.”
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The MUHC, for its part, says Lachine Hospital has been facing staffing challenges for years and wants to reevaluate the hospital’s mission for these reasons.
Therefore the emergency service will be closed between 10pm and 8am and ambulance traffic will be diverted to other hospitals.
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“If our emergency is closed here, it will contribute to increasing traffic in the already overcrowded emergency room in the west of the island,” explains Maja Vodanovic, mayor of the borough of Lachine. “We have a plan that we have been working on for ten years and now we are questioning the utility of the emergency. We don’t understand.”
Lachin’s hospital modernization project, worth more than $220 million, will follow its course and continue its mission to provide high-quality and avant-garde care to the population.
Mario Beauregard/QMI Agency
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