As healthcare workers, every day since the start of this pandemic, we are faced with events that are totally out of our control and that we never dared to imagine. However, I believe it could have been lessened if health was seen as an investment and not an expense.
A few weeks ago, when I did my last week on call on the cardiology floor, I was informed of a situation that could have had serious consequences for one of my patients awaiting coronary bypass surgery. Three patients who were hospitalized with him in his room had tested positive for COVID-19. Fortunately, I don’t know by what miracle, all of his tests came back negative and he was therefore transferred for his surgery a few days later. We can really say he escaped it narrowly. Because if this patient had contracted the virus, his surgery would have been postponed, and who knows what could have happened to him?
Inadequate work
This event brought me back to 2001 when it was discovered with amazement that the hospital where I work was infested with fungi due to water infiltration and that there was a need for major renovations. The news had caused a stir in the media. We had to act!
I remember that our medical team had suggested to the Ministry of Health to take advantage of this work to bring the hospital up to current standards. We suggested that we have single rooms with private bathrooms (like the CHUM and the MUHC now).
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But for the sake of economy, the Minister of Health at the time, François Legault, had chosen the least expensive option, that is to say to remove the fungal contamination and return the hospital to its original condition. All this for a supposedly “small bill” of $ 40 million.
So we stayed with our rooms 2 and 4 with shared toilets and a few private rooms. We never knew the exact total of the work invoice, but it seems that the amount was closer to 190 million dollars … To say that we could have made a copy and paste of the plans of the Le Gardeur hospital, which was under construction at the same time and which would have cost about 200 million. What is more, the two establishments serve the same number of inhabitants.
- Listen to Dr. Karl Blackburn’s interview with Sophie Durocher on QUB Radio:
First health crisis
Five years after the discovery of this outbreak, our hospital was experiencing a first serious health crisis. From May to November 2006, we were rocked by a major outbreak of It’s hard. The bacteria, highly transmissible between patients, spread easily due to a combination of inadequate hygiene and sanitation measures, but above all premises (freshly renovated at great cost) which had remained inadequate and which did not prevent promiscuity between patients.
So I come to wonder about how our successive governments view health and education budgets. It is clear that the economy is currently suffering greatly from the health crisis and that with adequate infrastructure, the impact would probably have been much less.
If there is one lesson to be learned, it is that in the future these critical sectors should be viewed as investments and not as expenditures for the well-being of future generations.
Dr Karl Blackburn
Cardiologist
Honoré-Mercier Hospital, Saint-Hyacinthe
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