ST-ANNE-DE-BELLEVUE — After news surfaced that more than 100 hospital beds have been vacant at the veteran’s hospital due to bureaucratic red tape, a West Island man is furious his 99-year-old mother has to be cared for at a facility 35 minutes away.
“It’s right in our face,” said Jim Hone, referring to Ste. Anne’s Hospital. “The facility is right around the corner. But there 113 beds and three floors vacant.”
Hone lives in an apartment in St. Anne’s nextdoor to his mother, Isabella Ritchie, so that he can help care for her in her advanced age.
On Dec. 22, she fell in her bedroom — an accident that initiated a remarkable amount of travel for a woman who resides in the shadow of a major hospital.
Hone first drove her to the Montreal General Hospital, where she stayed for nine days, and then moved her to the Royal Victoria Hospital. After 16 days there, she transferred to a rehabilitation clinic in NDG, where she remains.
Hone is angry — not only that Ste. Anne’s Hospital has vacant beds that aren’t being used — but that plans to make those beds available still aren’t clear.
“When you’re trying to get your mother accommodated, as we are, and in an urgent situation, it’s very difficult to read reports that say ‘whenever.'”
The hospital, which is the last federally-operated veteran’s hospital, has been in the process of transferring from federal to provincial management for years. The province has said it plans to use part of the hospital as a long-term care facility.
The slow transfer process has caused some to complain that potential patients are paying the price for bureaucracy.
Others, like patients’ advocate Paul Brunet, worry the province could be slow-walking the transfer to save money.
“The time they’re taking to open it is savings, direct savings,” Brunet said.
“I’m sad to say that they may be waiting for a longer time because the state is cutting longer term facility beds.”
Hospital officials wouldn’t comment to Global News. A statement emailed by a Veterans Affairs Canada spokesperson simply read that the agency “continues to work diligently with the Government of Quebec toward a successful transfer of the hospital.”
Joanne Beauvais of the provincial health ministry said they hope “to finalize a deal soon in order to complete the transfer by the end of this year.”
But Hone says details are still too murky, and besides, his mother may not have a lot of time.
“There’s still nothing transparent in terms of when is it going to happen,” he said. “What does it take to make it happen?”
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