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CTV News
a day ago
- Health
- CTV News
Patients moved, elevators fail amid back-to-back incidents at aging Montreal hospital
A power outage left several elevators out of service at the centre of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital on Monday, affecting both patients and staff. The latest incident at the beleaguered, aging hospital is yet another example of a facility in desperate need of renovations, according to pulmonologist Dr. Marc Brosseau. 'We've had recurring problems with the elevators since the spring. I believe in relation to the power, I heard that a significant number of elevators were out of service, which caused major delays in transporting patients and in visits from their families in the tower. It's a 10-storey tower, so having several elevators out always has an impact,' explained Brosseau. The CIUSSS de l'Est-de-l'Île-de-Montréal said the neighbourhood outage was not related to construction work or the condition of the building. In a statement, the CIUSSS said that the Montreal fire department requested an emergency power cut from Hydro-Québec. Clara Meagher from the CIUSSS added that during the outage, generators maintained power in critical areas. 'In such situations, the mitigation plan involves slowing down certain activities, particularly imaging. This is the case in all hospitals across Quebec. We are doing the same with the elevators, keeping only the minimum number necessary for emergency transport of patients,' Meagher said. Water leak the previous day Just 24 hours before the power outage, a water leak forced patients in the intensive care unit to be moved to another area within the hospital in order for emergency repairs to be carried out, the CIUSSS confirmed. According to Brosseau, the leak occurred in the coronary intensive care unit, where patients with serious heart conditions are treated. He said the leak originated from the ceiling, which then flooded part of the unit. 'Those recurring issues have an impact on morale and staff retention, on recruitment. We've had issues with the nursing shortage, especially on the night shift and this intensive care unit. This does not help,' Brosseau said. 'I mean, it's not normal to have these recurrent water leaks from the ceiling in a modern hospital. I think the emphasis is that the reconstruction has to go as quickly as possible, and Maisonneuve Rosemont would need some interim work to be done.'
CBC
04-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
'Our situation is dire,' says Montreal day shelter on lack of funding
The services of a downtown Montreal shelter could be jeopardized if it doesn't get the money it's seeking from the provincial government. Resilience Montreal is a day shelter that works primarily with people from Indigenous communities who gather in and around Cabot Square. It serves up to 1,000 meals per day to unhoused people. As the shelter prepares to expand its services with a move to Atwater Avenue in December, it says it's grappling with a lack of funding. The organization is gunning for $350,000 from the Quebec government to cover its operational shortfall. On Monday, David Chapman, the shelter's executive director, and Nakuset, the founder and director of development and philanthropy, sent a letter to Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant to sound the alarm on the issue. "With only three weeks of funding left, our situation is dire and the future of Resilience Montreal is uncertain," the letter read. "This is a matter that requires immediate attention and action." Chapman and Nakuset said they met with the minister in October to ask for additional funding and give him a tour of their future site, located about 10 minutes from their Ste-Catherine Street West location. "We were surprised in January to learn that no funding would be allocated to address this shortfall and that our expansion proposal, designed with the neighbourhood's well-being in mind, was not being supported," they wrote. In November, they said they sent the minister their budget, which outlined their plans to "ensure harmony" with the surrounding neighbourhood and for their service expansion. In the letter, Chapman and Nakuset explained that their plan included mediators, security, a mental health co-ordinator and gradual extension of opening hours to cover service gaps. They were also "assured" Carmant was aware of their shortfall for this fiscal year. Now, they believe there's been a "lack of prioritization" to ensure a smooth transition of the organization to Atwater Avenue. CIUSSS to offer support In an interview with Daybreak 's Sean Henry, Nakuset said the demand at the shelter is increasing and money runs out very quickly. "I think it's hard when you, you know, put sort of your eggs in one basket, not that that was the total basket," she said. Nakuset said that when she and Chapman met with Carmant and his team, they shared their needs and were told that the government should be able to respond favourably to their demands. She added that Resilience Montreal submitted its proposal by the deadline. In a statement sent to CBC on Tuesday afternoon, Carmant said the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l'Île-de-Montréal will contact the organization to offer its support. "We understand the challenges the organization is currently facing," the minister said in his statement. "We have invited the organization to submit its project under the federal funds' call for projects, which could represent a complementary source of funding." Nakuset said it would be "nice" not to have to constantly scramble for solutions. "I don't see us closing, you know, because the need is so great," she said. "We'll get it done ... we always find a way."
CBC
30-01-2025
- Health
- CBC
With translation service, Montreal clinic breaks down language barriers
This story is part of Welcome to Canada, a CBC News series about immigration told through the eyes of the people who have experienced it. Maya Cholette-Tétrault, a family physician, welcomes a patient into her office at a clinic in Parc-Extension. The woman, who recently emigrated from India, is here to discuss her pregnancy and is joined by a third person by video link — an interpreter who speaks Hindi. The CLSC serves one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in Montreal, and health-care workers regularly treat patients who recently arrived in Canada from around the world. For the past two years, the clinic has used an online translation service to help patients better communicate with staff. Cholette-Tétrault says she uses it for roughly one out of every four patients. Some of her patients arrived in Montreal only a few weeks ago and struggle to communicate in English or French. "It completely changes my practice," Cholette-Tétrault said. "These patients go through their day not being able to communicate with many people. Sometimes we end up helping with not just medical things, but other things that are super important — like finding a place to live." The patient, when asked through the interpreter whether she likes the service, smiled and said, "yes." WATCH | How the translation service works: Research backs it up The service, provided by Voyce, a company specializing in medical translation, offers interpreters who speak 240 languages and dialects. The process is simple: open the app on a tablet or phone, select a language and a translator pops up on the screen within seconds. Aurelia Di Fabrizio, who oversees the program at the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, said it has allowed health-care workers to better communicate with patients and save money in the process. In a province where language politics are ever-present — and last year there were questions about whether English speakers could receive care in their preferred language — Di Fabrizio said the first priority was always ensuring patients can communicate with their doctor. "At the end of the day, we have to offer care to our patients that come into our clinics, into our hospital, and it's actually a much bigger issue to not be able to communicate with our patients," she said. "It causes huge quality of care concerns." Research overwhelmingly suggests that access to care in a patient's first language dramatically improves health outcomes. A 2022 study published in the Canadian Medical Association journal, for instance, found that patients who speak languages other than English are up to 54 per cent less likely to die or experience other severe health outcomes when paired with physicians who speak the same language as them. A new survey commissioned by CBC suggests, as well, that new immigrants have had difficulty accessing care, particularly in Quebec. A little more than 1,500 adult Canadian residents took part in the Pollara survey commissioned by CBC News between Nov. 1 and 18, 2024. They all arrived in Canada in the past 10 years. Among the respondents, three out of five newcomers in Quebec (62 per cent) said they were not satisfied with Canada's health-care system, in comparison to 44 per cent of total respondents across Canada. 'I talk to my patients' The translation service was piloted in Parc-Ex and has expanded to other clinics on the territory, as well as the Jewish General Hospital, Di Fabrizio said. Previously, the CLSC relied on in-person translators, who had to be alerted ahead of time and were far more expensive. They also had to be paid if a patient was late or the clinic was behind on its appointments. Perle Feldman, a longtime physician who works at the clinic, said relying on in-person translation has been an impediment over the years. She recalled one of her first patients as a resident was a woman who was trying to get pregnant, and had her sister-in-law as her interpreter. "It was very, very awkward because you can imagine the questions that you have to ask during an infertility workup," she said. Feldman said online translation has been helpful and she hopes to see it expanded further. "We have a very vulnerable population," she said.
