“I don’t want to own private clinics,” Dr. Pierre Gfeller, the MUHC’s executive director, said in an interview to the Montreal Gazette after Friday’s public board meeting. “I’m firmly committed to public services in health.”

The MUHC under Gfeller’s leadership to date has done the opposite of what he stated at Fridays public board meeting.

Following the MUHC closure of the Glen and Lachine outpatient gynecology clinics, seven gynecologists practising at the MUHC and five who work elsewhere opened a private OB-GYN clinic in a building owned by the Royal Victoria Hospital Foundation.

The former Air Canada building at 5100 de Maisonneuve managed by the MUHC also rented out space to neurologists who practise at the Montreal Neurological Hospital for a private neurology clinic.

Private clinics are not under MUHC jurisdiction and can charge fees for certain services, while those same services are covered under medicare next door at the Glen superhospital.

Gfeller’s announcement followed a meeting with senior health ministry officials which followed the publication of a two-part series by the Montreal Gazette that revealed the MUHC was renting out space to private clinics to boost a chronically low occupancy rate.