MONTREAL -- It's been 11 days since ambulances stopped transporting patients to the Lachine Hospital.

Earlier this month, it announced it was closing down the emergency room for 12 hours a day due to a shortage of staff. It’s ICU is also completely shut down.

"The Quebec government has created shortages of health-care workers. Never in the history have we seen such a shortage of health-care workers,” said Dr. Paul Saba, president of the council of physicians at the hospital.

Dr. Saba said the hospital is struggling to hold onto respiratory therapists because it's not able to offer them the same bonuses as other hospitals.

He said therapists at Lachine work at least part of the time with critical care patients inside this adjacent pavilion.

So, he said the government doesn't consider them full-time hospital workers.

"They previously were at the Montreal Chest Institute (MCI), which is designated a hospital. Now they're at the pavilion doing the same work, but they're not getting the salary differential.. so they're leaving,” he said.

“In fact, we lost four over the past year who went downtown."

A spokesperson for the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) said bonuses are determined by collective agreements and government decrees.

In a statement, he said “nurses and respiratory therapists at the Lachine Hospital receive all the incentives to which they are entitled.”

The MUHC said it's actively recruiting and committed to reopening the emergency room 24/7 as soon as possible.

However, one family doctor said every day it's closed, it makes it harder to reopen.

“Nurses that used to work evening and night shifts now, I mean, they can't work those shifts because it’s closed, so they have been sent either to other departments or they decided simply to go somewhere else,” said Dr. Daniel Laliberte.

He and other Lachine Hospital doctors have decided to pay the bonuses out of their own pockets.

"We're offering $15,000 per year for the next two years,” said Dr. Saba.

Lachine Hospital is the only primarily French-speaking hospital in the West Island and Quebec Solidaire's health critic said the government should be protecting community hospitals.

"I know that big hospitals are important, but community hospitals are as well and more important for communities such as this one — francophones in Lachine — as well as anglophones,” said Vincent Marissal, the MNA for Rosemont.

CTV News reached out to the health ministry for comment but did not receive a response at press time.