Outaouais health crunch squeezes Ottawa ERs

Quebec patients are crowding Ottawa hospitals, boosting emergency room wait times and surgery waiting lists for Ontario residents, says the head of the Ontario health network that includes the Ottawa region.

Dr. Robert Cushman, head of the Champlain Local Health Integration Network, said hospitals have told him that the number of Quebec patients in Ottawa emergency rooms has been growing over the past two or three years.

"We've heard that emergency room wait times are up … because of this," he said. "And our problem is that we're really at full capacity."

In 2006, more than 46,000 patients from the Outaouais crossed the Ottawa River to get medical services.

And Gérald Savoie, president and CEO of Ottawa's Montfort Hospital, said he's seen a 30 to 35 per cent increase in Quebec patients in his hospital's emergency room in just the past year.

Among those patients was Outaouais resident Ginette Miville.

In August, she was advised by her family doctor to head across the river after she spent all night in the emergency room of Gatineau's Hull hospital. She went home after growing tired of waiting for medical staff to check on her. Later in the day, she visited her family doctor.

She arrived at Montfort Hospital around 4:15 p.m., she recalled.

"At around five, they knew exactly what I had: a heart attack. I had one big one when I was in Hull, and then I had two small ones," she said.

She ended up getting treated at Montfort and the Civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital.

Quebec spends $67 million for Ontario treatments

The flow of Quebec patients into Ottawa doesn't just squeeze Ontario's health care system. In 2006, the Quebec government paid more than $67 million for Outaouais patients to be treated in Ontario. Its annual Ontario health bill had grown 60 per cent over the preceding five years.

Both Ottawa and Outaouais health officials said they are working to reduce the number of Quebec patients seeking services in Ottawa.

Cushman said some Ottawa hospitals are starting to refuse to put Quebec patients on waiting lists for certain procedures.

Dr. Guy Morisette, head of the Outaouais health agency, said he's currently negotiating with Ottawa hospitals to impose quotas on the number of Quebec patients who can get certain procedures in Ontario.