MONTREAL — Six Montreal physicians and professors of medicine are speaking out against the way the McGill University Health Centre is run, charging that the MUHC has become “dysfunctional,” that its academic teaching mission is being given short shrift and that the superhospital planning is a mess.
In an opinion piece published in Tuesday’s Gazette, the group is calling for a “new approach to hospital guidance,” recommending a special advisory committee be set up “to help assure the maintenance of academic standards in our teaching hospitals.”
As an example of poor planning, the group notes that the $1.3-billion superhospital under construction in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce will not be equipped with teaching rooms or an auditorium for medical students, and, as a result, “teaching facilities may have to be rented to give lectures.”
“Furthermore, it is clear that the superhospital will be a smaller building with fewer beds and resources,” the group adds. “Many services have been abandoned, outpatient facilities will be minimal and many medical units still have no idea of how they will be accommodated in the new hospital. The health implications of these changes in hospital function have not yet been addressed.”
Dr. David Morris, an associate professor in medicine and gynecology at McGill and one of the co-signatories of the comment piece, said he and his colleagues decided to go public with the goal of making the MUHC a “more open and collegial” place.
“It’s obvious that we need to make significant improvements in the way the MUHC is governed,” Morris said in an interview. “These disasters do not occur overnight.”
Dr. Andrey Cybulsky, chief of nephrology at the MUHC, said he decided to sign the comment piece because he objects to the MUHC’s “top-down planning process without really much consultation.”
In Cybulsky’s case, he was alluding to planned changes at the MUHC involving dialysis, now being provided at the Royal Victoria and Montreal General hospitals. There will be dialysis units at the superhospital as well as at Lachine Hospital, but Cybulsky expressed concern there might still be a loss of units.
Dr. John Bergeron, the Robert Reford professor of medicine at McGill, said an academic advisory committee is needed at the MUHC “to give an assurance of credibility for all the positive things that the MUHC is supposed to be doing.”
Gwendolyn Nacos, a member of the board of directors who was elected by the population, declined to comment on the letter, saying the policy of the board does not allow for individual members to comment to the news media.
In a statement about the group’s letter, the MUHC pledged to continue co-operating with staff and the community at large.
“Since the appointment of the new board and a new director general, we have strengthened our governance,” the statement said.
On Monday afternoon, Normand Rinfret, chief executive officer of the MUHC, sent an internal email to staff in which he discussed $50 million in cuts to reduce the hospital network’s projected deficit.
Rinfret did not address the group’s letter, but said that “we need an agile management team” and that “our approach emphasizes personal interaction, including face-to-face meetings where honest conversations should hopefully alleviate concerns.”
The other signatories to the open letter are Dr. Barry Posner, director of the polypeptide hormone laboratory at McGill; Dr. Mark Sherman, interim director of endocrinology at the MUHC; and Dr. Walter Gregory; a senior physician at the MUHC.
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