Why not long-term care at the Royal Vic?

Lachine Hospital may well have benefited from affiliation with the McGill University Health Centre, but not everyone is a happy camper about transfer of certain MUHC services to Lachine.

Long-term patients who are on ventilators, or are bedridden or wheelchair-bound, dread the thought of being transferred from downtown hospitals to faraway Lachine. Family members and friends are also concerned about the difficulty of getting to and from Lachine Hospital using public transport.

No doubt there are people eyeballing the Royal Victoria Hospital property for purposes other than patient care. But the silence has been deafening on the subject. Why? Surely the public has a right to know or be consulted.

Could not part of the Royal Victoria Hospital — the Ross Pavilion, for example — be turned into a long-term-care facility? Such places are not only for the aged; relatively young people with incurable or untreatable neuromuscular diseases fall into this category too. Many are stuck in MUHC hospital rooms with little or no opportunity to go outside, or even see the doctors they used to consult on an outpatient basis. The Ross Pavilion’s location on the mountainside, private rooms and sun lounges (currently offices), and access to the outdoors in fine weather would give some joy and dignity to those coping with these devastating diseases.

It is shocking to think that the millions of dollars the MUHC lost in acquiring that condo shell adjacent to the Montreal General Hospital for outpatient clinics could have been put to better use upgrading existing buildings without ever involving Lachine. As one previous letter-writer (“Use Queen E for MUHC outpatients,” Jan. 11) put it, the Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre (which is close to the MUHC’s Glen Campus) could have been included. (The Queen E. was formerly an excellent community teaching hospital affiliated with the Royal Victoria, until the Quebec government’s budgetary constraints and cuts in residency-training positions forced its closure several years ago.)

The MUHC’s mission statement, “Best Care for Life,” should mean more than what a “superhospital” can provide.

Elizabeth Cuthill

Montreal