EXPANSION OF THE MONTREAL GENERAL HOSPITAL MUST BE SERIOUSLY QUESTIONED: LES AMIS DE LA MONTAGNE

Montreal, June 9, 2008 – Les amis de la montagne, a registered charitable organization dedicated to the protection of Mount Royal, will present their memorandum tonight on the McGill University Health Centre’s (MUHC) plan to expand the Montreal General Hospital on Mount Royal, to the public consultation bureau of Montreal.

Mount Royal has always been a source of pride for Montrealers, but also an object of desire. Numerous large institutions that established themselves on the flanks of the mountain initially protected the mountain from the densification of urban development to its very summit. Today, these same institutions are themselves seeking to expand by way of construction and further development, or by selling and vacating their properties, due to financial constraints that render them unable to either keep or maintain their buildings.

According to Sylvie Guilbault, Executive Director of Les amis de la montagne: “The MUHC’s reorganization project touches all of these concerns and more, since the very sensitive subject of health services in Quebec are at issue, a subject of concern to all Quebecers.”

Billions of dollars of public and private funding will be invested in the course of the next several years to improve health services and infrastructures.

Brief timeline – Montreal General Hospital and the MUHC

• In 2000, the MUHC demonstrated that to remain avant-garde in the delivery of health services in the 21st Century and to offer better care to the community, a reorganization of its hospitals and services on a single site would be necessary, ensuring ease of access and the construction of a building that answered the current needs of patients and health professionals.
• In 2005, following a request by the Government of Quebec to keep a hospital downtown, the MUHC modified its strategy and decided to develop a trauma unit at the Montreal General Hospital (MGH) on the mountain, creating a division between its services on two university campuses.
• In order to meet the requirements of a teaching hospital trauma unit, substantial expansion and transformation of existing units would become necessary to the buildings, which were erected in the 1950s. The structure already has an imposing foothold on the mountain, wedged as it is between Mount Royal Park to the north and a residential sector that has increased in density in the last 50 years.

To limit development and ensure that Mount Royal remains a unique and emblematic site, the Conseil des Ministres decreed Mount Royal a Historic and Natural District in 2005. This same body is preparing to authorize the expansion of the MGH on the mountain. Are we making the right choices?

A number of fundamental questions must be asked before billions of dollars are invested in a project that will irreversibly change the face of Mount Royal and Montreal.

• Can the transformation of the MGH, a building constructed in the 1950s, truly meet the requirements of a 21st Century teaching hospital trauma unit?
• Hospitals continually evolve and develop. What will happen to the mountain site, when in 15 or 20 years, our needs once again require more space? Will the trauma unit be allowed to expand further on Mount Royal or will it be moved to the Glen site? In the case of the latter, will we have sacrificed the mountain in 2008 for a possibly “transitional” facility?
• In the case of serious accidents, the survival of individuals depends on the speed of an intervention where every second counts. By virtue of its location on the mountain, the MGH is already difficult to access. By comparison to the Glen site, which is close to the expressway, is it plausible to believe that the MGH will be able to answer accessibility needs, an essential issue for a trauma unit?
• Currently, there is no provision for a heliport on the site of the MGH. In order to provide quality of care and rapid intervention in emergency situations, is the trauma unit at the MGH, which services 56 percent of the Quebec population as far as Ungava Bay, likely to require the infrastructures necessary to receive emergency cases by helicopter?

Information:
Gabrielle Korn
Director of Communications
Les amis de la montagne
514 843-8240, ext. 237