LARGER BUT LATER
Health Minister Gaétan Barrette recently announced that a $1.5-billion, 400-bed hospital would be built in Vaudreuil-Dorion by 2026. CAQ leader François Legault slammed the Liberals for further delaying the project.
Advocates for a new VaudreuilSoulanges regional hospital are calling on the leaders of all political parties in the National Assembly to commit to their support for current plans to build, in light of this fall’s provincial election.
The Comité tripartite pour la construction de l’hôpital de Vaudreuil-Soulanges, a group representing citizens, business owners and municipal officials, met with François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, on Monday.
The CAQ has topped opinion polls on voter intention since August, with some polls suggesting the party could win a majority government in the next election.
At a press conference in Hudson at Whitlock Golf Club, Legault vowed that if elected, the CAQ would begin construction of the Vaudreuil-Dorion hospital before the end of its four-year mandate in 2021. He said his party would do everything possible to fast-track the project to ensure it is completed as quickly as possible.
“It’s unacceptable that today we have (premier Philippe) Couillard saying sorry, it won’t be done for 2021 but for 2027,” said Legault. “It’s a big error to delay it by six years.”
Legault said it was unacceptable that patients at the Suroît Hospital in Valleyfield have been known to wait up to 18 hours to be seen by a doctor, and noted that the hospital is consistently at more than 200 per cent capacity. As an interim measure until the hospital is completed, he proposed increasing funding for ambulances, paramedics, and walk-in clinics, as well as paying for some patients at Valleyfield to move to beds in private clinics to reduce overcrowding.
“I’m a businessman. One of the things I want to change in government is to reduce the bureaucracy. It’s unacceptable to take four years to have plans for a new hospital,” Legault said.
Legault also confirmed that if elected, a CAQ government would respect the right of anglophones in the Vaudreuil- Soulanges region to access health services in English.
“Anglophones have the right to get some services in health care and education in English,” said Legault. “We respect, and will continue to respect, those rights in a CAQ government.”
According to hospital lobby spokesperson Louise Craig, the tripartite committee will ask for similar commitments from all provincial parties to ensure the project isn’t sent back to the drawing board.
“We wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be a political football,” Craig said.
Last Friday, the Vaudreuil- Soulanges MRC, which represents the region’s 23 municipalities, released a statement calling on the government to prepare a transition plan to meet health-care needs until the hospital is completed. Rivière-Beaudette Mayor Patrick Bousez, who is the prefect of the MRC, called on Health Minister Gaétan Barrette to present an interim plan to meet health-care needs in the region for the next eight years.
“Given the lack of ambulances and local health services, the government should invest in firstresponder training throughout the territory of the MRC in addition to front-line services and the improvement of local services,” Bousez said.
The statement also pointed out that residents of the region have been waiting for the hospital since it was first announced in 2010, when the project was supposed to have been completed by 2018.