Dr. Pierre Gfeller, the new CEO of the McGill University Health Centre, is just 15 days on the job — but at the MUHC’s board meeting Friday he received a baptism by fire as various members of the organization’s patients’ committee grilled him over problems plaguing the organization.
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The problems include difficulties parking at MUHC hospitals, cleanliness of the cafeteria and accessibility issues. Montreal’s superhospital was also a source for criticism.
“We have people who are sick, who are frail, the elderly, and we have just two handicapped available bathrooms on the day the hospital opened,” Amy Ma, who sits on the MUHC’s patients’ committee, told Global News.
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“What part of hospital don’t you understand?”
Those in attendance also brought up the MUHC’s deficit.
According to the organization, two years ago it ran a deficit of more than $40 million. The next year it was a deficit of over $20 million and it was more than $8 million this year.
Gfeller said the MUHC’s finances will improve.
The final issue brought up was around a lack of accessibility, a problem Gfeller said he would work to correct.
According to Mona Arsenault, even though washrooms are sometimes marked as being accessible, that isn’t always the case.
“Each washroom I went to see this week had accessibility signs and I could not open the door,” she said.
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