Gatineau hospital scores lowest in Quebec report

The Gatineau hospital had the lowest overall score among 86 Quebec hospitals ina reportpublished by the current affairs magazine L'actualit.

The magazine gave the Gatineau hospital a mark of 32 per cent in its first survey of Quebec hospitals, which is published in its April 1, 2007,edition.

That was the lowest overall score among the hospitals that were able to provide the information required forscoring, including:

• The average time spent by a patient waiting in the emergency ward for admission toother wards.
• The average wait for elective (non-urgent) surgery.
• Access to hospital laboratory services without an appointment.

L'actualit editor-in-chief Carole Beaulieusaid the surveyis intended toserve as a public resource.

"I'm trying to get a public debate going on as to which hospitals work better," she said. "What can we do to help those who don't?"

Health minister responds

Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard said the results help pinpoint problems at individual hospitals.

'It's always a natural reaction to say the system is the problem. Well, if next door there are less problems, it's not just the system, but the institution itself that has to adapt its practices.' Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard

"It's always a natural reaction to say the system is the problem," he said. "Well, if next door there are less problems, it's not just the system, but the institution itself that has to adapt its practices."

According to the survey, patients who arrive in the emergency ward of the Gatineau hospital wait an average of 27 hours for admission; more than19 per cent waited 48 hours or more for admission last year.

In addition, 1,150 of 3,161 patients waiting for elective surgery at the hospital on March 31, 2006, had been waiting for more than six months.

Meanwhile, at Baie St-Paul hospital, theaverage emergency room waiting time was 8.5 hours and only one of 47 people awaiting surgery had been waiting for more than six months.

Baie St-Paul hospital, about90 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, serves a population of 7,615, while Gatineau hospital serves 137,875.

Gatineau hospital says wait times improving

Gatineau and Hull hospital spokesman Denis St-Jean said since thereport's numberswere collected, his hospitals have cut in half the number of people waiting 48 hours for admission and the number of people waiting more than six months for elective surgery. He questioned whether the report's findings are meaningful anymore.

"The facts that are in there are right, but they are dated 2005-2006," he said. "Since then,[among] all hospitals across Quebec, this region has gone through the most change."

Butat least one local healthadvocatesaid the state of Outaouais regionhospitals continues todrive residents to Ontario for treatment.

"Fifty per cent of the population get their services from the Hawkesbury hospital," said Pierre Ippersiel, the former director of the network of public clinics in Hull and the Petite-Nation region east of the Outaouais.

"The numbers are more and more from year to year, so I don't see any significant change in the last two years in my region, at least."