Lachine Hospital to significantly cut ER hours amid staffing shortage

A shortage of staff is forcing the partial closure of the Lachine Hospital's emergency room.

The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) announced on Monday that the emergency room will only be open between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., starting on Nov. 7.

Ambulances will be routed to other hospitals outside of those hours. The hospital's intensive care unit will also be closed, said Dr. Paul Saba, president of the council of physicians at Lachine Hospital, which is located in southwestern Montreal.

"This is a community hospital," Saba said. "We serve people who do not have always the means to go downtown."

That means the closure will affect the people who live nearby, because rerouting a seriously ill patient to an open hospital at 4 p.m. isn't the same as looking for a different fast-food joint because the nearest one is closed, he explained.

"This is life or death," Saba said.

After more than 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical facilities throughout the Montreal network are experiencing staffing shortages, the MUHC said in a news release.

"Lachine Hospital, which had already suffered from a precarious workforce for several years, now faces a critical shortage of nurses and respiratory therapists," the release said.

The hospital will maintain care at the Camille-Lefebvre CHSLD, including support for chronically ventilated patients at all times. Hospitalizations and surgeries will continue, and there will be a team present for cardio-respiratory resuscitation at all times, the release said.

"We would like to assure our staff and patients that this situation is temporary and that we are working intensively to correct it as quickly as possible," the release said.

"Our recruitment activities in nursing and respiratory therapy continue."

The release says this temporary measure will not affect plans to modernize the facility.

In a letter Saba recently sent to Quebec's Health Ministry, he said the decision to partially close the emergency room will put people's lives in danger because "you can't tell a patient suffering from a heart attack that it's too late because it's 4:15 p.m."

The MUHC and Quebec's government are responsible for ensuring Lachine Hospital is in full operation as it is the only French-speaking hospital serving Montreal's West Island, he wrote.

Integrated into the MUHC's network in 2008, the Lachine Hospital has 14 emergency beds, more than a hundred rooms, and the CHSLD.

The Lachine Hospital isn't the only facility experiencing partial closures in the province. At least 10 facilities in the province, particuarly in the Outaouais region and the Eastern Townships, are reorganizing due to staffing shortages.