MUHC opens chronic-care beds to ease ER overcrowding

Forced to cut acute-care beds to unforeseen levels to meet a ‘spending correction’ imposed by Quebec’s Health Minister, Gaétan Barrette,  the MUHC has now added 20 chronic-care beds for the summer for patients with nowhere else to go.
In an internal memo sent to MUHC staff on April 29, the hospital administration said it was opening a 20-bed temporary unit on the 13th floor of the Montreal General Hospital, “to care for patients who have reached the end-of-active-care at the MUHC.”
The hope is that freeing up those beds will ease emergency room overcrowding at the MUHC and at other Montreal hospitals – overcrowding that hospital insiders say is exacerbated by the bed closures forced on the hospital earlier this year.
Source CBC
“The bed shortage should not be blamed on the recent Quebec’s Health Ministry decision. The McGill hospitals in 1992-93 had approximately 1,665 beds, today including the billion dollar superhospital  and before the latest cut the total number of beds was at 832 . With a growing and aging population, today’s shortage of beds should not have been unforeseen”, said Manuel Fernandes VP OH&S for the MUHC CSN employees.