Just months from opening its doors to patients, the new MUHC superhospital may boast many state-of-the-art services, but its psychiatric services are being cut.
The cuts, which include a reduction in psychiatric beds and psychiatrists, have caught many by surprise.
“There will be longer wait times in the ER,” said Amy Ma, chair of the MUHC Patients’ Committee, who has been closely following the developments at the new hospital. “I was shocked to find it's not uncommon for people to wait up to one week in the emergency department before they get an inpatient bed.”
The Royal Victoria Hospital will close all 12 of its emergency psychiatric beds when it moves to the superhospital this spring; eight of them to be transferred to the Montreal General Hospital.
The Montreal General, however, is already facing its own cuts. By June, it will reduce the number of its inpatient beds from 49 to 42.
The number of psychiatrists will also be reduced from 50 to 40 within the next five years, mostly through attrition.
Hospital stays are expensive, but they're often necessary, explained Dr. Karine Igartua, president of the Quebec Associations of Psychiatrists.
“We are already doing all we can to treat patients outside the hospital, but there's always a population that will need the structure and safety of a hospital environment and at some point we have to stop cutting,” she said, adding that the mentally ill have few advocates.
“Unfortunately mental health is often the most neglected part of medicine. Our patients aren't the ones with the biggest lobby groups,” said Igartua.
Those who need help often have to take drastic measures to get it, said patient advocate Paul Brunet.
“They call us, we don't know what to do and sometimes we have to ask them or ask their relatives to call the cops to have them admitted in priority and being taken care of,” said Brunet, who is the president of the Council for the Protection of Patients.
