Independent probe into Montreal's Lakeshore hospital ER includes 135 recommendations

A report into problems plaguing a suburban Montreal hospital emergency room makes 135 recommendations for improving the situation, chief among them accelerating the building of a replacement for the aging critical care unit.

The report into the Lakeshore General Hospital was ordered by Health Minister Christian Dube in February after a series of articles published in the Montreal Gazette about six deaths since 2019 that health-care workers had described as preventable.

The independent report released today was prepared by Francine Dupuis, a retired executive at one of Montreal's regional health boards.

Her mandate was to identify ways to improve the Pointe Claire, Que., emergency room and she met with 70 people at all levels of the hospital's management and staff.

The recommendations are divided into main themes that include better communication, decentralizing tasks and quality assurance, but the report adds that without renovations to the current, aging facilities, other "unfortunate events" are likely to occur.

Dupuis described an emergency room that had seen bad habits "crystallized," where communication problems resulted in an inability to bring about changes already recommended.

She writes that a toxic work environment existed in the unit, highlighted by tensions between various groups of employees and management and a practice of blaming each other.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 1, 2023.

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