FIXING THE MUHC

The uncertain status of the McGill University Health Centre is causing anxiety, both within the venerable hospital network and among the community it serves. The administration is grappling with cuts to services and programs to meet its budget. It claims the MUHC is being underfunded based on a 10-year-old plan that doesn’t take into account present-day patient volumes.

Health Minister Gaétan Barrette says the MUHC suffers from a “problem of leadership” and needs to be “stabilized.” While they bicker, patients suffer. The MUHC users’ committee is sounding the alarm about diminished service, including unacceptable delays.

Prevention and support programs have been cut. Morale has plummeted among doctors, nurses and staff, who patients report are doing their best under trying conditions. Unions have organized petitions, and the foundations that raise money for the hospital network have called on Barrette to address all the worry.

Barrette is currently studying a report by Dr. Arvind Joshi, the former chief executive at St. Mary’s Hospital, on the possibility of merging the MUHC with one or both western Montreal health networks, to more fully integrate the health-care services available in English. Known by their French acronym CIUSSS, these umbrella organizations were created during the provincewide restructuring of hospital, longterm care home and rehabilitation facilities under Bill 10. Joshi’s analysis is not yet public.

Proposals to integrate the MUHC with other health-care networks came from the directors of those CIUSSSes, Benoît Morin and Lawrence Rosenberg.

The MUHC has rejected their advances and Barrette has said there will be “no forced marriage.” But this remains a time of unprecedented turmoil both inside and outside the MUHC.

Whatever fate Barrette has in mind for the MUHC, he should not proceed without the buy-in of a community growing ever more mistrustful and concerned about the government’s financial and bureaucratic health reforms. Barrette needs to articulate a clear vision. He must do this for the public at large — patients, anglophones, Montrealers of diverse backgrounds and francophones — all of whom are watching in consternation as an institution they are strongly attached to falters.

Barrette is known more as a bulldozer than a consensus builder, thus he will need to overcome his natural instincts to impose his will on the health sector and work with stakeholders to reassure everyone that any changes made are ultimately in the best interests of all patients, not least those for whom the availability of health care in English is a vital concern.

These are life and death matters, not just for institutions, but for people.