Lachine residents put up lawn signs to save ICU
By Chelsey St-Pierre
The Suburban
The ICU at the Lachine Hospital remains closed. Lachine residents are now bringing attention to the issue by placing lawn signs as part of a series of ongoing demonstrations demanding the reopening of the ICU. Doctors, nurses and members of the community have been advocating with multiple demonstrations to re-open the hospital’s ICU which the MUHC advertises on its website as the “heart of the hospital.”
“Critical care is the heart of the hospital. The intensive care unit is where really sick patients from all corners of the hospital come to receive immediate, life-saving care,” Dr. Francesca Rubulotta, first chair of the Critical Care Medicine at the MUHC, stated on March 25, 2022.
“Shortly before the winter holiday season, in December 2020, we were told that it was closed because the nurses needed vacation, but it never re-opened,” Dr. Paul Saba, who has been heading the advocacy to ensure that all services, particularly priority services, remain active at the hospital, said to The Suburban. “Not all community members in support of the efforts to demand the reopening of the ICU were able to be present at the demonstrations held in front of the hospital. These lawn signs give everyone who wishes to express their support the opportunity to do so.”
“This has been a ping-pong game for many years. Last year, the MUHC told us that they will re-open the emergency 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but with no intensive care, as soon as a patient gets very sick, the patient needs to be moved to another hospital,” former Lachine Mayor and president of the Save the Lachine Hospital citizens committee, Claude Dauphin, told The Suburban. “This is like having a clinic, rather than a fully functional ER.” When asked if he believes that the lawn signs will serve as an effective pressure tactic, Dauphin said, “we rallied to get the ER reopened when it was closed to ambulances and it worked. There is proof that when the community gets involved, it raises awareness to the authority figures; the Quebec government and the MUHC. There is hope but we need to work hard.”
“When our ventilated patients were transferred here in 2015 from the Montreal Chest Institute, many of the families were concerned with their care being transferred to a CHSLD. They were assured because we are so near the Lachine hospital which had, at the time, a functional ICU. Since 2020, that has changed. It is a very stressful situation for the families and the residents. For folks who are ventilated if something goes wrong and they require intensive care and a respiratory therapist, distance makes a big difference. Imagine trying to hold your breath for five minutes,” said Danielle Carter, President of the Camille Lefebvre residents committee.
Robert Renaud, an 81-year old Lachine resident who lives just several blocks from the Lachine Hospital .told The Suburban that he is afraid to go to the hospital with all the intermittent service closures. “There is more population, but less doctors, it makes no sense to reduce services. I don’t go there any more. They are spending millions and millions on rebuilding it, but they are closing services. It does not make any sense.” n
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