For months health departments across Quebec have complained about staff shortages, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. Now the Montreal General Hospital has been forced to close one of its units.
The 11th floor, which houses the department of thoracic surgery was shut down in May, because there aren’t enough nurses. According to the MUHC Employee’s Union the move is causing a great deal of stress among other employees too.
“(It’s stressful for patient attendants), for housekeepers, for administrative agents,” said union president Shiaman Diawara. “If you displace them to other floors to replace other workers and they don’t have the proper training for those departments, it’s more work.”
The union head said it gets worse, pointing out that another floor — the 13th, where treatment for traumatic brain injury happens — is set to close as well. Hospital spokesperson Annie-Claire Fournier confirmed that the unit will close soon and blamed the nursing shortage too.
According to Diawara the closures will affect more than 30 beds over the two floors.
But in an email to Global News, Fournier wrote, “patients will be relocated to other units. There is not redirection to other hospitals…We are temporarily consolidating activities on the 12th floor.”
In an updated statement to Global News on Thursday evening, the MUHC said it wanted to “clarify that the thoracic surgery unit has not interrupted its services to patients.
“In fact, all thoracic surgery is now consolidated on the 10th floor of the MGH,” the statement read.
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Diawara believes the closures will have huge consequences.
“In few months it’s going to affect the service to the patient, but also this comes with increasing workload,” he pointed out.
That’s because even more people will quit, he argues, exacerbating the main reason that led to the current staffing shortage.
“There are too many burnouts and this is something we need to take in consideration for the coming weeks, months and years in the health system,” Diawara observed. “People are leaving because of those work conditions.”
He stressed that working conditions across the health-care sector need to improve quickly.
In March, provincial health minister Christian Dubé announced plans to overhaul the health-care system which included a pledge to make working in health care more attractive.
Reacting to news of the closures at the Montreal General, patient rights advocate Paul Brunet wonders how quickly the government’s plan will be put in place.
“It looks like an election platform, rather than real determination…to settle the problems,” he stressed.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Robert Maranda told Global News in an email that the department is aware staffing issues are made worse during summer months.
“Being always mindful of labor issues, particularly during this period,” wrote Maranda, “the MSSS (ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux ) will closely monitor the situation in the health and social services network and will propose any adjustments that may prove necessary to ensure the maintenance of the supply of services to the population.”
Fournier said the hospital is actively working to recruit the required staff and plans to reopen the units as soon as possible. The problem, says the union, is that could take a while.
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