The massive new MUHC superhospital hospital at Vendome was decades in the making but still came out flawed according to some critics who believe the facility should have been designed differently.
Here are some critiques that have been going around, collected from a variety of sources.
I do not vouch for the accuracy of all of these claims so please feel free to rebut in the comments.
Defenders undoubtedly see it differently and those views are not reflected here.
Here are some critiques that have been going around, collected from a variety of sources.
I do not vouch for the accuracy of all of these claims so please feel free to rebut in the comments.
Defenders undoubtedly see it differently and those views are not reflected here.
- Provincial health budget issues have made it impossible to treat every patient, so one indirect solution is to tolerate people leaving before they are treated. One source reports that the Vendome superhospital has a high rate of walk-aways, meaning that many patients get sick of waiting and simply go home.
- The hospital design separates staff from ER patients in such a way to make workers forget that sick people are waiting. Patients are kept on the other side of a wall and prioritized according to a number algorithm that few comprehend.
- An ideal facility would place hospital staff in the centre of a circle with patients all around. The design is common elsewhere (including in a part of the Jewish General) and keeps patients and staff aware of each other. In its current configuration staff is separated from patients and become oblivious to them. Patients are shooed away if they stick their head where the staffers sit. The configuration cannot be adjusted without rebuilding.
- Security is more stringent than in previous hospitals and staffers are required to sign in and use passes to get through various doors, thus making travel more difficult.
- The design requires staffers to take long circuitous routes which they have already started ignoring, opting for shorter routes to transport machinery and other items, which may or may not have infection implications. One exit meant for emergencies only has broken and is now frequently used by staffers.
- Frequently needed equipment and supplies are not kept on site, so getting them transported to the hospital is an unnecessarily complicated task. Employees get around this by squirreling items in various drawers and closets, increasing clutter and disorganization.
- The hospital was designed by a small minority of hospital administrators who had the time required to devote. Therefore certain elements are emphasized while other needs have been ignored, which has fed resentment between various groups within the hospital.
- Service has been sacrificed for commerce, as the hospital was designed to get people walking down a corridor full of retail outlets. Only two of the commercial spots have been rented out.
- The hospital contract requires all minor changes to go through Lavalin and its maintenance staff, so such minor things as replastering a wall damaged by a shifted bed or popping a nail into a wall to hang a picture require costly intervention.
- Many administrative staffers working on drudgerous jobs such as billing and inventory were switched over to more glamorous posts connected to the public relations hype explosion that accompanied the opening. Many do not want to return to their previous jobs.
- Parking is obscenely expensive for visitors. The lot was built above-ground rather than below-ground as originally planned, as the CDN/NDG borough capitulated and gave permission to allow the ugly eyesore parking structure to be built in a way it was not supposed to.
- The Children's Hospital has much charity support even though its needs are less than the adult hospitals. As a result, top-notch machinery and equipment is routinely borrowed by the adult wings while the Children's staffers cry out for their return.
- Patients are routinely transported in non-sterilized stretchers, which ideally should be pristine.
Based on my own personal experience, I would dare to say the so-called Super Hospital is a Super Fail...
ReplyDeleteDuring the summer had a serious cycling accident in NDG (pothole on the De Maisonneuve bike path) and had a family member drive me to the MUHC. We couldn't find the emergency entrance, so asked a hospital security guard sitting by the front entrance. His response, "I do not know where it is" (this is an employee of the MUCH!). Went inside, no one was present at the information desk, it was unmanned! After several minutes a member of the medical staff was flagged down, and when asked, and they said they too were not sure where the emergency entrance was. Meanwhile I was sitting in the car, bleeding and in great pain. Thankfully a patient (yes, a patient!) knew where emergency was, and told us to drive out, down a ramp and enter through the basement. Obviously not very well marked, because we completely missed it.
After waiting quite a while, I was seen by triage who promptly says, "Why did you come here? If you're arm is broken, there is no one on staff here to cast it. You'll need to take an ambulance to St Mary's". Didn't have a broken arm after all, but I did need stitches. In the end I didn't even get that, because the new intern shipped in from Quebec city didn't have enough practice. At least I got an X-ray and someone to clean and bandage my wounds.
More recently my mother had an accident and injured her leg. When she was done, and had trouble walking, they couldn't supply a crutch. And despite living just a few blocks away, had to take a taxi back because the access tunnel leading to Vendome has stairs. Yeah, an access tunnel to a billion dollar state-of-the-art medical facility that is not accessible to the physically handicap, sick, injured or elderly.
Speaking of access, unlike every other major hospital, there is no helipad on the roof of the MUHC or anywhere on site. If you needed to bring in an emergency case by medivac chopper, forget about it. Hey, why not, if you cannot even access it by public transport.
An proper access tunnel is going to be built to connect with the Vendome metro station, but apparently it will take until 2019 (or later) and at a cost of approximately $80 million dollars. In any other place in the world it could be done in a few short months and at a tiny fraction of that cost. Better yet, it would have been built BEFORE the hospital even opened. How is it possible anyone could have been this shortsighted.
Countless other failings of this hospital, but I'd like to leave room for other comments....
In fact, there is no law requiring a registered patient from leaving the hospital if they don't want to stay. This happens all the time. I've seen it. I've also seen patients rip off their IV's and argue with the doctor who said, "I can't stop you from leaving, but I advise you not to.", etc. Some patients are simply horrified to be confined in any way which is why sedatives are used as a deterrent.
ReplyDeleteAs for walk-in, waiting-room, would-be patients, they routinely come and go, of course. One can even have an actual appointment early in the morning but still be waiting for hours in the waiting room until they get fed up and walk out.
Clearly, the system is not perfect and probably never will be.
Not sure how much better it is in Europe.
By continously referring to this campus as the "superhospital", the media echo chamber continues to mislead the public. If you go to the hospital (and I assume you haven't) you'll notice large signs inside and out with the correct names to use.
ReplyDeleteNow for the health ministry. They are doing a even bigger disservice to the public by not clearly informing/educating the public on what services are available at each hospital. Don't go to the Glen if you've broken your knee. No orthopedics there. You'll need to go to the MGH or JGH.
With a totally incompetent government micromanaging every detail of the system, combined with over-zealous SNC-Lavalin management of their building, and lazy media elevating the glamour of the place using a word of their own invention, you have a recipe for disaster.
And by the way, why are we forced to fork over $80M to build a tunnel that could and should have been built while the hospital's foundations were being poured? Do we build first and ask questions later?
Remember, SNC-Lavalin stole the plans for the building from another company and they still managed to completely f*** it up.
It's a large hospital, yes. But "super?" No bloody way.
Look at the bright side of it: Arthur Porter got his millions of dollars! You guys should be ashamed of being so jealous of such a successful businessman!
ReplyDeleteAs was inevitable, the media has increasingly been referring to the MUHC superhospital as "The Glen Site", or simply "The Glen"--which, in my opinion, is perfectly fine and totally logical.
ReplyDeleteNot sure who it was in this blog who suggested that referring to the new hospital as "The Glen" was inappropriate presumably since the major portion of Glen Road is located in Westmount despite the fact that the hospital complex is entirely within the city limits of Montreal on the former CPR Glen Yards property.
In any event, unless time is of the essence and another hospital is closer, I can easily imagine patients or their family members in the ambulance asking the crew, "Please take me to the Glen.".
The Glen shouldn't be used as a name because that word means valley and this is not in a valley, it's atop a hill but wtv, it's not a big deal.
ReplyDeleteGood point, of course, yet people over time tend to hang on to terms that are familiar to them despite whether or not they are technically or geographically accurate.
ReplyDeleteTake, for example, how traffic reporters today continue to refer to "The Yards"--the former railway yards north of Autoroute 20, the trackage and infrastructure of which was razed years ago and is now awaiting recovery and re-development. Indeed, I wonder how many of those listening to local traffic reports are even old enough to remember the sight of trains and tracks on that huge tract of land, never mind how out-of-towners, tourists, and cross-country and American truckers react, those who haven't clue what the reporters are talking about. One can only wonder how confused such visitors become when they hear "heavy traffic on the two Fifteens"!
Remarkably, I still hear some from force of habit refer to Autoroute 20 as "the 2 and 20". Up until the early 1970s, Route 2 was the previous official name of what was also listed back in the day on old maps as "Metropolitan Boulevard" and "Montreal-Toronto Boulevard" in that sector of the island (indeed the latter is still shown on maps today). Route 2-B was later renamed Autoroute 520--Cote de Liesse.
Likewise, Snowdon was never officially designated as a district of Montreal. Way back in the mists of time the farmer and property owner John Snowdon's house existed near to would eventually become the northwest corner of Queen Mary Road and Decarie Boulevard. When the then-new streetcar lines converged there, it was known as Snowdon Junction and the boundaries of Mr. Snowdon's adjacent properties were located within Ward 3 of the district of N.D.G.
Logically then, as the decades went by and more people moved into the area, the word Snowdon was conveniently appropriated in the naming of local business establishments as well as the Snowdon Theater, Snowdon Metro, etc. The word Snowdon was even officially designated as an electoral district until presumably French nationalists felt that they could no longer tolerate "all those English names", changing as many of them as they could, despite the fact that Mount Snowdon is in Wales and not England.
I could probably write a treatise on how and why names are used to describe geographic regions but it would be an exhausting exercise.
Good points but it's not so evident to me that the hill atop the Glen was known as The Glen. I'm aware that the specialized nomenclature referred to it as the Glen Yards but I never heard that term in my life prior to the superhospital project being built and I grew up nearby, passing the area frequently, indeed almost daily. So when somebody referred to The Glen, they clearly meant the area under that big stone train bridge.
ReplyDelete"Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen...", how many remember the theme song of that vintage TV series? (hear it in YouTube). :-)
ReplyDeleteBut I digress.
I suppose we can "blame" the Canadian Pacific Railway for naming Glen Yard back in 1906 (or the plural "Yards" that many often referred to it in later years). See the highly informative and descriptively illustrated webpage about it here:
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cpr_facilities/Glen.htm#:~:text=CPR%20Glen%20Yard%20located%20in,leaving%20the%2070%20foot%20turntable.
Although it is erroneously stated further down in the aforementioned website's text that Glen Yard was "located in Westmount", no map I have thus far turned up proves conclusively that any related CPR structures other than the connecting trackage actually existed within the territory of Westmount itself. Old maps in my files show the letters "CPR" clearly outside of Westmount's boundary line, although this could possibly be for convenience. Perhaps some railway buff has more specific details to provide on regarding possible Glen Yard infrastructure located within the border of Westmount.
In any event, the latest Google Maps' aerial view of 2019 shows a large empty field or wooded area east of the MUHC Glen Site. What, if anything, does Westmount intend to do with that valuable space, I wonder?
Thus far it seems that the current administration of Westmount's City Hall has no intention of allowing an eastern road access to the MUHC Glen Site property directly from Ste. Catherine Street either via an overpass or underpass. What access DOES currently exist from the east perpendicular to Glen Road is the gated, narrow, and oddly-named "Yamajo Hill Avenue", presumably created to deny entry and exit to anything other than emergency and maintenance vehicles.
The lack of hospital access from Ste. Catherine Street itself will surely become a controversial safety issue in the future, particularly if and when it is ever proven that an ambulance patient had lost their life due to traffic delays approaching the western and southern entrances to the MUHC Glen Site.
Regarding local rail service itself, I find it ironic that the boarded-up and long-unused former Westmount passenger station at the foot of Victoria Avenue has ended up becoming a forlorn, boarded-up building considering the fact that when it was threatened with demolition decades ago due to lack of use, there was outrage from nearby residents and heritage groups. Although the current green space north of this old structure is well kept and with shaded park benches, the abandoned, former Victoria Station itself is unlikely to have any significant purpose again other than to fuel the fond memories of those who actually used it to board and disembark passenger trains back in the day, because it has been replaced by Vendome Station a short distance further west. Having said that, the tiny green space is a great resting spot for cyclists. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmount_station
I actively researched the whole issue of Westmount ensuring that no roads would lead from its lands to the superhospital and I find it a shame and a disgrace.
ReplyDeleteThat road up the hill is a no-brainer and yet they still managed to keep it shut.
However the issue of that other access, I'm not sure abou the geography now but Jeremy Searle explained to me that a road from St. Catherine would require some sort of overpass or other complicated contraption. I don't remember the logistics of this but it wasn't that easy to pull off. He seemed to want to get it done but this is many years ago.
As for calling the yards Westmount, it was common practice at the time - and even now - to try to pass of Westmount-adjacent areas as Westmount itself. There's some masters thesis at Concordia that details how NDG consciously imitated Westmount's bylaws in an attempt to duplicate the wealth of the area during its construction.
Westmount and Montreal have a long history of disagreements with the former town perpetually paranoid of being annexed by the latter. Indeed, the seps have traditionally hated Westmount as a cauldron of the rich English, conveniently there are many French residents living there as well.
ReplyDeleteWhen N.D.G. was annexed to Montreal in 1910 there was talk of renaming it "New Westmount" which of course infuriated the REAL Westmount as they did not consider the "riff raff" of the new suburb worthy of the name, not to mention potential confusion as to which was the "real" Westmount. Not sure if such potential renaming was a serious plan or simply a way to rattle the cage of Westmount city hall. Incidentally, alternate name ideas for N.D.G. were "West Plateau" and "Montclair", the last of which, in my opinion, has a nicer ring to it. Ultimately, N.D.G. remained N.D.G. Ha...as kids we used to jokingly refer to N.D.G. as the National Dumping Ground and one wag even claimed it meant No Damn Good! ;-)
As for that treatise you mentioned, perhaps you are referring to this excellent document by Mr. Walter Van Nus which includes many fascinating details and maps.
https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/uhr/1900-v1-n1-uhr0791/1018121ar/
Ranaming territory is fraught with controversy. Years ago when Cote St. Luc suggested that they name their new high-end housing enclave west of Decarie Square (around Tommy Douglas and David Lewis Avenues) as "New Hampstead", guess what: Hampstead screamed bloody murder and the idea was dropped.