It was an late afternoon in June in 2020. I was preparing a picnic to supper when I felt a first contraction. 4:16 p.m. I passed my head in the living room to warn my boyfriend who played with the big one that the work started. I went to the bath. It quickly became intense. I live 5 km from the hospital. Arrived in the corridor of the birth floor, I shouted that it was already growing. We did not have time to light the lights in the room that the head had come out. The nurse just had time to catch the little one as I climbed on the bed. It was 5:48 p.m.
There is nothing like being able to count on his local hospital when the time comes to give life.
Except that in Rouyn-Noranda, it has not been possible for a month now.
A hospital that caught fire
Last July, a carriage carrying drugs ignited in the obstetric unit forcing a complete evacuation of the hospital.
Courtesy photo
Since then, a few services have resumed, but there is still no functional operating room in this hospital which serves 43,000 people.
Let us put that it is not time to hit an original when leaving Rouyn.
Still the women we leave in pasture
No operating room, that means no childbirth, suddenly that you should go into cesarean mode.
In a month, more than thirty women had to give birth more than 100 km from their living environment. Each month that passes without this nerve room, it will be the same.
Thus, childbirth like mine would take place in a tank on the 117 towards Val-d’Or.
Local teams have managed it as pros reorganizing everything they could. But here we feel that they come to the end of their resources.
How long will the “Tops Guns” in Health Quebec and the CAQ be depriving the population of Rouyn-Noranda of this operating room?