Quebec updates list of 'designated' English speaking, multilingual health centres

A woman walks into the MUHC hospital in Montreal, Sunday, April 26, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Quebec has updated its official list of English speaking and multilingual health centres.

According to the province's Charter of the French Language, "municipalities may be recognized when more than half the residents of their territory have English as their mother tongue."

A similar rule applies to health and social service establishments, which are only recognized by the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) as having special language status when they provide services to a majority of people who speak a language other than French.

"'Designated' institutions and facilities are required to make all their health and social services available in English to English-speaking people," the government notes.

These are the health centres in Quebec that have been appointed for what the government calls "English expression":

Capitale-Nationale

• Jeffery Hale – Saint-Brigid's Hospital

Côte-Nord

• CLSC Blanc-Sablon
• CLSC Chevery
• CLSC Kegaska
• CLSC Mutton Bay
• CLSC Saint-Augustin
• CLSC and CHSLD Donald-G.-Hodd
• CLSC Tabatière
• CLSC Rivière-Saint-Paul
• CLSC Tête-à-la-Baleine

Estrie

• Centre de réadaptation en déficience intellectuelle et en troubles envahissants du développement de l'Estrie
• CSSS-IUGS – Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Sherbrooke

Laurentides

• Lachute – Laurentides Residence

Laval

• Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital

Montreal

• McGill University Health Centre (MUHC)
• Grace Dart Extended Care Centre
• Centre d'hébergement Denis-Benjamin-Viger
• Saint Mary's Hospital
• CLSC Pierrefonds
• CLSC Lac-Saint-Louis
• Lakeshore General Hospital
• Douglas Mental Health University Institute
• Batshaw Youth and Family Centres
• Saint Anne's Hospital (only recognized by the OQLF)
• Lethbridge-Layton-Mackay Rehabilitation Centre
• Father Dowd Residential Centre
• Henri-Bradet Residential Centre
• Saint Andrew's Residential Centre
• Saint Margaret Residential Centre
• Miriam Centre
• Centre multiservices de santé et de services sociaux de Parc-Extension
• Jewish Eldercare Centre
• CLSC Benny Farm
• CLSC Côte-des-Neiges
• CLSC Metro Family Medicine Group
• CLSC René-Cassin
• Catherine-Booth Hospital
• Mont-Sinaï Hospital
• Richardson Hospital
• Maimonides Geriatric Centre
• Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital
• Maison de naissance de Côte-des-Neiges

Montérégie

• Cavendish Addiction Readaptation Centre (formerly Foster) (only recognized by the OQLF)
• Saint-Philippe Addiction Readaptation Centre (formerly Foster) (only recognized by the OQLF)
• CHSLD Ormstown
• CHSLD Huntingdon County
• CLSC Saint-Chrysostome (only recognized by the OQLF)
• CLSC Huntingdon
• Barrie Memorial Hospital

Outaouais

• CLSC Chapeau
• CLSC Mansfield-et-Pontefract
• CLSC Otter-Lake
• CLSC Quyon
• CLSC Rapides-des-Joachims
• CLSC and centre de services externes pour les aînés de Shawville
• Hospital and CHSLD du Pontiac
• Wakefield Memorial Hospital

Private establishments

Estrie

• Foyer Wales

Lanaudière

• CHSLD Heather inc.

Montreal

• Centre d’accueil Héritage inc.
• CHSLD Bayview inc.
• CHSLD Bussey Nursing Home
• CHSLD Château sur le lac de Sainte-Geneviève inc.
• CHSLD Vigi de Mont-Royal
• Havre-Jeunesse
• Shriners Hospitals for Children
• Elizabeth House
• Manoir Beaconsfield

Four health centres have also been designated as ethnoculturally accessible places:

• Montreal Chinese Hospital (Chinese);
• Santa Cabrini Hospital (Italian);
• CHSLD Dante (Italian);
• CHSLD Polonais Marie-Curie Sklodowska (Polish).

"These services enable people who are not sufficiently fluent in French or English to understand and be understood by health care professionals," the government notes. "Interpreters improve and facilitate verbal and cultural communication between health care professionals and patients."

Despite this list of bilingual health centres, the government points out municipalities and boroughs may, at any time, receive a notice from the OQLF that their special linguistic status has been withdrawn.

This includes Greenfield Park, a borough in Longueuil on Montreal's South Shore, which lost its bilingual status in December 2022 after the OQLF reported that only 27.4 per cent of its residents declared English as their mother tongue on the 2021 Statistics Canada survey.

Montreal's Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough lost its status after 35.8 per cent of residents said they primarily spoke English.

In Dollard-des-Ormeaux, that number rose to 45.2 per cent; in Dorval, 47.2 per cent and in Kirkland, 45.8 per cent.

All these municipalities lost bilingual status following the census.