Ottawa's Montfort Hospital

[Leafless]

Provincial restructing of Ottawa's hospitals resulting with the closing of the centrally located primarilly English Grace hospital and Riverside hospitals with more funds and existing services directed to the so called bilingual Montfort hospital.

This hospital is also pleading for even more money from the Ottawa public to satisfy it's grand expansion to serve all of Ottawa's residents---so they claim.

In a letter to the editor in the Ottawa Citizen, Fri. April 7/2006, Pg.-C4 does not agree the Montfort is a bilingual hospital.

In this letter the writer claims her father was rushed by ambulance to the montfort hospital in January and the family had concerns about his hearing and his lack of ability to speak French but had no choice but to go to that hospital based on where he lives.

Arriving at the hospital the next morning asked the nurses in the emergency department what was wrong with her father but they began chatting to each other because they had difficulty telling her what the problem was in English.

After he was admitted she visted the Montfort to check on him and was treated with disdain by hospital staff when I asked questions about his care and condition. When she went to the cafeteria with her mother they were again treated with disdain and scowls because they spoke ENGLISH. She says she did not notice one English speaking staff member the whole week he was hospitilized.

She only found out what was the matter with her father after picking up medical treatment and found out her father had pneumonia.

she goes on to say she believes the Montfort Hospital is not bilingual and some staff are hostile to English speaking parents families.

That's it folks another example of what majority English tax-payers dollars are fiancing in a majority English province that is NOT officially bilingual by a Dalton Mc.Guinty Liberal provincial government.

[Michael Hardner]

Provincial restructing of Ottawa's hospitals resulting with the closing of the centrally located primarilly English Grace hospital and Riverside hospitals with more funds and existing services directed to the so called bilingual Montfort hospital.

This hospital is also pleading for even more money from the Ottawa public to satisfy it's grand expansion to serve all of Ottawa's residents---so they claim.

In a letter to the editor in the Ottawa Citizen, Fri. April 7/2006, Pg.-C4 does not agree the Montfort is a bilingual hospital.

In this letter the writer claims her father was rushed by ambulance to the montfort hospital in January and the family had concerns about his hearing and his lack of ability to speak French but had no choice but to go to that hospital based on where he lives.

Arriving at the hospital the next morning asked the nurses in the emergency department what was wrong with her father but they began chatting to each other because they had difficulty telling her what the problem was in English.

After he was admitted she visted the Montfort to check on him and was treated with disdain by hospital staff when I asked questions about his care and condition. When she went to the cafeteria with her mother they were again treated with disdain and scowls because they spoke ENGLISH. She says she did not notice one English speaking staff member the whole week he was hospitilized.

She only found out what was the matter with her father after picking up medical treatment and found out her father had pneumonia.

she goes on to say she believes the Montfort Hospital is not bilingual and some staff are hostile to English speaking parents families.

That's it folks another example of what majority English tax-payers dollars are fiancing in a majority English province that is NOT officially bilingual by a Dalton Mc.Guinty Liberal provincial government.

This letter is disconcerting to say the least.

It's no wonder that folks such as yourself are disgusted with the system when complaints like this surface.

Hopefully the Citizen will press the government to inquire into this matter. There should be audits done from time to time, as well, to determine whether the system is functioning - and not only in a political way.

[lost&outofcontrol]

Provincial restructing of Ottawa's hospitals resulting with the closing of the centrally located primarilly English Grace hospital and Riverside hospitals with more funds and existing services directed to the so called bilingual Montfort hospital.

Not that I like the Liberal .gov(any any .gov for that matter) but the Riverside is not being closed down. They closed the Emergency care and walk in clinics in favour of expanding the Civic and General campuses. I work at the General campus and we now handle most the supplying for the Riverside campus.

I don't necessarily agree with the policy but you should at least post correct information. What we should really concerned be with in Ontario are LHINs (Local Health Integration Networks ). Another round of amalgamation that will end up costing in the end more per year like the last one and an unelected unaccountable board who will control the largest part of the Ontario Budget.

[Leafless]

lost&outofcontrol

You wrote- "The riverside is not being closed down."

What good is a hospital without Emergency care like the Riverside once had, which in fact could cost someone his or her life on wasting a trip to the Riverside not knowing it has NO emergency facilities.

In all practical aspects Emergency care was transferred at least in part to the Monfort and the Grace which specialized in maternity and associated care was transferred to the Montfort with the Grace being torn down.

The point is the Montfort Hospital is not English friendly and also serves as a French teaching hospital for Quebec doctors at the expense of majority Ontario English taxpayers.

Also both the Civic and General campuses provide bilingual services.

In fact a doctor I was dealing with at the General campus ( which also has a high number of French personnel )was a French Canadian who could not understand more than a few words at time nor could I understand him.

Minority linguistic interest are now destroying the functionability of English hospital care in Ontario again an in a English majority province with no 'official bilingualism'.

[lost&outofcontrol]

What good is a hospital without Emergency care like the Riverside once had, which in fact could cost someone his or her life on wasting a trip to the Riverside not knowing it has NO emergency facilities.

The Riverside campus is a 30 secs drive away from the General Campus. All I wanted to do is correct you on the point that Riverside was not being closed. Don't get me wrong I agree with you that Riverside should of kept the Emergency care clinics. I think the amalgamation was a bad idea in the first place. A "cost saving measure" that ended up costing Ontarians 3 billions $. And with the impending complete takeover of the LHINs, this will mean fewer nurses, fewer MRI technologists, and we will have to travel farther to many different “centralized” locations to "health services".

Sorry to go OT on your thread.

[Bakunin]

On another subject but on the same topic,

2 mega-hospital will be built in montreal for ~ 3,3 billions...

One english and one french... i think its totally absurd, our politicians for "political corectness" want to build 2 huge hospital when they could make one and make it billingual.

77% of french want 1 billingual hospital, 65% english want 1 billingual hospital. For once there is a concencus...

[geoffrey]

It's like segregation. God forbid a Frenchman and an Englishman use the same facility. Absolutely unacceptable.

[Argus]

In this letter the writer claims her father was rushed by ambulance to the montfort hospital in January and the family had concerns about his hearing and his lack of ability to speak French but had no choice but to go to that hospital based on where he lives.

Arriving at the hospital the next morning asked the nurses in the emergency department what was wrong with her father but they began chatting to each other because they had difficulty telling her what the problem was in English.

After he was admitted she visted the Montfort to check on him and was treated with disdain by hospital staff when I asked questions about his care and condition. When she went to the cafeteria with her mother they were again treated with disdain and scowls because they spoke ENGLISH. She says she did not notice one English speaking staff member the whole week he was hospitilized.

She only found out what was the matter with her father after picking up medical treatment and found out her father had pneumonia.

she goes on to say she believes the Montfort Hospital is not bilingual and some staff are hostile to English speaking parents families.

I've never met a local francophone who couldn't speak pretty good English. I believe that if you were to check the cars in the employee parking lot you'd find almost nothing but Quebec plates. This is what I've pointed out before. Quebecers demand bilingualism here in Ottawa, and then government winds up hiring Quebecers to supply that bilingual service, which in turn raises demand for more bilingual services. Most of the clientelle at the Montford are either Quebecers, or transplanted Quebecers who got jobs with the federal, provincial or city governments here in Ottawa specifically because of the need for bilingual employees.

[Leafless]

Argus

You wrote- " Most of the clientelle at the Montfort are either Quebecers, or transplanted Quebecers who got jobs with the federal, provincial or city governments here in Ottawa specifically because of the need for bilingual emplyees.

I can't imagine that type of requirement for bilingual employees since the most recent census showed that 97% of Ottawa citizen's COULD speak English.

I think the FACT Ontario is NOT OFFICIALLY BILINGUAL should set the standard to provide protection to the majority English in this province against job loss to what can be seen as an illegal bilingual movement to force English in many cases, to be forced to learn French to apply for jobs in their own majority English province.

I like to see what would happen if the reverse were true in Quebec.

Quebec also is the only western government since Nazi Germany to place restrictions of an individual language on commercial and private property , and written and oral communication between employees and mangement of private buisness.

[GostHacked]

It is not even a big hospital at all. It is quite small compared to the other ones in town. I live close to Monfort and I don't see the justification in it.

[Leafless]

GostHacked

You wrote- " It's not even a big hospital at all. It is quite small compared to the other ones in town."

Maybe you can supply some fiqures.

My fiqures indicate the Montfort actually has a total of 407 beds.

The Civic, General and Riverside campuses have a total of 1130 beds. And the Queensway Carleton about 204 beds.

So broken down as singular hospitals Montfort is the Biggest.

[lost&outofcontrol]

GostHacked

You wrote- " It's not even a big hospital at all. It is quite small compared to the other ones in town."

Maybe you can supply some fiqures.

My fiqures indicate the Montfort actually has a total of 407 beds.

The Civic, General and Riverside campuses have a total of 1130 beds. And the Queensway Carleton about 204 beds.

So broken down as singular hospitals Montfort is the Biggest.

The Montfort has 289 beds, the Ottawa hospital has 1195 beds. Both number do not include the extra beds set aside for long-term care. Montfort is much smaller as it doesn't offer many of the services the Ottawa hospital does. Here are some better statistics:

Montfort emergency patients - 32,097 per year

Ottawa hospital emergency patients - 117,500 per year

Children's hospital(just beside the General campus) emergency patients - 51,158 per year

I'll post heir annual budget when I find the figures.

[Leafless]

Lost&outofcontrol

You wrote- " Montfort has 289 beds"

Thats the right number of active beds but you excluded 128 long term beds for a total of 407 beds.

Beds are beds, and the Montfort expansion provided room within the hospital for long term beds.

So even if you exclude long term beds the Monfort hospital is approx. the size of the three indivdual hospitals that comprise Ottawa hospital campuses.

The point is Montfort is an extra hospital almost the size of the three individual main Ottawa hospitals and bigger than the Queensway Carleton hospital and also serves as a teaching hospital that includes Quebec doctors and is culturally biased to English speaking Canadians at the full expense of Ontario tax payers.

That's the point.

[Bakunin]

500 000 french speaking ppl in ontario have ~ 400 bed... and you complain about it WOW !!

The english mega-hospital project will have ~ 800 beds... its twice bigger and there are already a few english-only hospital...

[Leafless]

Bakunin

You wrote- " 500,000 french speaking ppl in Ontario have 400 beds... and you complain about it.

Service pertaining to hospitals goes by the district you live in and the elderly gentleman and his family we are talking about in this thread was treated 'culturally indifferent' and according to the article discriminated upon linguistically in a English majority English province that is not offically bilingual.

I am also getting tired of seeing French population fiqures like you posted.

Are you telling me the 5000,000 French speaking people in Ontario you posted cannot speak English??

I think this is false, as a census indicated for instance in Ottawa 97% of the population can speak English.

If the French funded their own hospitals ...then they could be considered French hospitals...but this is not the case is it??

The Montfort Hospital is a public hospital advertised as a bilingual hospital paid for by all tax payers of Ontario also catering to Quebec doctors and patients as well as other Ottawa hospital do likewise.

I think Ontario is providing up and beyond services required relating to French Canadians and Quebec doctors and patients and certaintly expect so called bilingual hospitals to be courteous and not discriminate against English patients.

[Bakunin]

I just fail to understand why some peolpe here keep comparing quebeckers to nazi, racist and "evil" people like if it was hell to be english in quebec, like if it was worst than being in a prison when they get 10-20x times the services the french get in ontario.

I mean why do i read complain all the time about french outside quebec having too much services & stealing jobs and complain about english ppl not treated well enough in quebec ?

[Bakunin]

Oh, and just to make things clear... lets bring up the REAL numbers...

Mcgill university and its Medical School in quebec lose each year about 50% of the doctor they form. Most of them for ontario and united states.

Quebec is one of the province losing the most doctor in Canada. between 1995/2002 the migration is -355 doctors.

The worst thing is that actually the english quebeckers will get 1,58 billions to build there new english hospital representing ~8-9% of the population. the french quebeckers will get 1.54billions to build their new hospital...

However i beleive english canada will treat us like if we had some kind of nazi government, and that we are lazy, untrustworthy, second class peoples stealing jobs.

sources: http://www.unseulchu.org/

[fixer1]

I live outside of Ottawa but have in the past gone to the Monfort Hospital and I do not speak French. I was received and treated promptly and was ok with the fact that yes they spoke French first but did revert to english when informed I could not speak French. That was back in the days whenthe Montfort had a rating so low that it was a wonder why the government allowed it to run .

Since then my mother who aslo can not speak french had been taken there by ambulance and she had no problem at all. I think the poster who started this thread is grand standing as there probably is not even 1% straight Francophones on staff there and I will also say that no you do not see a lot of license plates from Quebec in the employees parking lot.

I do believe that Ont was railroaded into keeping the Montfort open when it had such a terrible reputation for malpractice and was always at the bottom of the ratings, when other better hospitals were closed. But since that time they have upgraded and new personal have been better educated to make it a hospital that is on par with the average. There is no problem with language to anyone who does not have a chip on their shoulder, and other then many of the maintenance staff, all are bilingual. Some times when a crisis comes people are very quick to judge and probably be harsher then normal, but In all of the city of Ottawa it would be hard to find many totally Francophone people. I rather doubt most of the posts about it being French only. I do know that it has passed its Accreditation and is raed as bilingual and no complaints are on file with CCHSA (Canadian Council of Health Accreditaion Services) about it.

[Leafless]

Bakunun

You wrote- " I mean why do I read complain all the time about french outside Quebec having to much services and stealing jobs and complain about english ppl not treated well enough in Quebec."

Well, maybe that's what the facts are.

With Quebec being officially unilingual French what guarantee anywhere is there in Quebec hospitals or anywhere in Quebec that the majority English of this country will get proper service in English. If we get complaints concerning English being discriminated by french employees in Ottawa's public Montfort hospital, what would the discrimination factor against the English be in Quebec hospitals??

Does Quebec provide an English Services Act like Ontario does with Bill-8, for Quebecers?

Does Quebc provide any type of bilingualism policy for the English in Quebec?

Jobs in Quebec have all kinds of restrictions especially in the construction industry preventing English workers from working in Quebec.

What kind of jobs does Quebec supply do Ontario Aglophones in the same nature and quanity Ottawa does allow for Quebec with thousands of Quebec cars pouring over into majority English Ontario every day taking all that money out of Ontario's economy and giving to and supporting Quebec's economy?

I hope Ontario would make English official like they do the French language in Quebec with restrictions to Ontario employment like Quebec does then obviously there would be NO requirement for any type of federal bilingualism and jobs in Quebec and Ontario would be on a level playing field.

[Bakunin]

Bakunun

You wrote- " I mean why do I read complain all the time about french outside Quebec having to much services and stealing jobs and complain about english ppl not treated well enough in Quebec."

Well, maybe that's what the facts are.

With Quebec being officially unilingual French what guarantee anywhere is there in Quebec hospitals or anywhere in Quebec that the majority English of this country will get proper service in English. If we get complaints concerning English being discriminated by french employees in Ottawa's public Montfort hospital, what would the discrimination factor against the English be in Quebec hospitals??

Does Quebec provide an English Services Act like Ontario does with Bill-8, for Quebecers?

Does Quebc provide any type of bilingualism policy for the English in Quebec?

Jobs in Quebec have all kinds of restrictions especially in the construction industry preventing English workers from working in Quebec.

What kind of jobs does Quebec supply do Ontario Aglophones in the same nature and quanity Ottawa does allow for Quebec with thousands of Quebec cars pouring over into majority English Ontario every day taking all that money out of Ontario's economy and giving to and supporting Quebec's economy?

I hope Ontario would make English official like they do the French language in Quebec with restrictions to Ontario employment like Quebec does then obviously there would be NO requirement for any type of federal bilingualism and jobs in Quebec and Ontario would be on a level playing field.

Im not working for the government, i have no idea about billingualism policy but what i know is the services are 10-20 times better adapted... In montreal its almost an invasion... in some part of the city its harder to be served in french than in english.

The Quebec governement had to legislate so that immigrants at least try to integrate the society.

[Leafless]

Bakunin

You wrote- " i have no idea about bilingualism policy but what i know is the services are 10-20 times better adapted".

It seems you don't have much of an idea about the other cpncerns in the preceeding post either. Do you have a link to back up your convictions concerning services for the English.

This is what Ontario covers under the French Language Services Act...as well of course bilingualism policies.

www.rssfe.on.ca/english/t4a-e.htm

[GostHacked]

Gotcha. I will claim ignorance when it comes to the workings of our hospitals. I judged it by the physical size of Monfort, and it is not large at all. Nice thing is , if I get hurt, this place is only a couple blocks from my place.

[Bakunin]

Healthcare:

"Health care is available in French and English in all of Québec's hospitals"

http://www.immigration-quebec.gouv.qc.ca/v...ion7/7_1-an.htm

Schools:

~400 english schools, ~100 billingual

http://www.bdso.gouv.qc.ca/bdso/ken_tablea...%26p_position=6

[Leafless]

Bakunin

You wrote- " Health care is available in French and English in all of Quebec's hospitals".

No, this is totally false.

There is no guaratee without a bilingual policy that English services are guaranteed in Quebec hospital and there are NO BILINGUAL POLICIES in Quebec.

BTW can a person with an Ontario health card obtain hospital care in Quebec like Quebecers can obtain hospital care in Ontario with a Quebec card??

You wrote- " Schools, 400 English... 100 bilingual.

What does a bilingual school mean it is in Quebec??

Does it offer English immersion to French students like Ontario offers English students French immersion and French students private French Catholic schools and public catholic schools and public non-denominational schools??

You still haven't answered what policies the Quebec government provides for it's English minority???

[Bakunin]

What does a bilingual school mean it is in Quebec??

it mean it is split up between english and french to give access in region where there may not have enough english student to fill an entire school.

As for immersion i have no idea how many school offer it but i did have english immersion in my small regional french only school. I loved it however i know im still doing many grammar mistake.

For the hospital, i beleive you could be served in english anywhere with no problem. Actually the only way you will find ppl that can't speak a bit the language is to talk to someone with no education like very old ppl or ppl that failed their english class wich IMO would be very hard to find within any hospital staff.

Im not aware of any billingualism policy act but i do know that the only truly billingual place in canada are ottawa,montreal and a few place in new brunswick. Not "officially" or with "Policy" but in practice with the fact.