West Island HSSC reorganized

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

West Island Health and Social Services Centre (HSSC) executive director Suzanne Turmel sees an eventful future ahead for the region, starting with the HSSC’s new organization announced last Thursday.

“This is the culmination of all the work of the four institutions,” Turmel said, reminding that, in 2004, provincial Bill 25 brought the Pierrefonds and Lac St. Louis CLSCs, the Centre d’hébergement Denis-Benjamin-Viger, and the Lakeshore General Hospital together under the West Island HSSC. Combined, the HSSC has about 2,000 employees, including 250 physicians.

According to Turmel, the new, more horizontal organization brings similar programs together, rather than employee categories. The revised structure, which came into effect last Wednesday, will mean new teams and ways of delivering services for some HSSC staff. The new organization will result in faster, more efficient service for the clientele, Turmel said.

“It’s a big thing. It’s not just bringing the four together. It’s an enormous change in the mandate we have,” she added.

In co-ordinating services for the approximately 216,000 residents in the West Island HSSC territory, their new mandate involves providing better access to care, improved quality of care, and healthier continuity “so it doesn’t take three years after a referral” to get care, Turmel added.

Turmel said the HSSC hopes to add another network clinic to the two currently in the territory — Statcare in Pointe Claire and Medistat in Pierrefonds — and is in talks with Brunswick Medical Clinic in Pointe Claire. People with minor emergencies can go to the network clinics, which are open 365 days a year, 12 hours a day during the week and eight hours a day on weekends. Over the next four years, Turmel hopes to establish nine family medicine groups (FMG) in the West Island. Patients going to the territory’s only existing FMG– the Stillview Medical Group – can register with a doctor who will commit to the follow-up and care of those who have registered.

“With FMGs, when your child, your mother, or you get sick, you don’t have to go through the Yellow Pages for three hours to find a clinic that’s open,” Turmel said. “If we can put that together, I will achieve my goal on the West Island.”

But the road will not be an easy one: Turmel said the territory needs another 12 to 50 family doctors. Solving the lack of about 100 long-term care beds is also a challenge.

“We have a lot of elderly patients who are waiting to go elsewhere, but the elsewhere doesn’t exist,” Turmel said, adding the HSSC is looking at collaboration possibilities that could include the federally-owned Ste. Anne’s Hospital for veterans. “It’s something to keep in mind.”

The HSSC is also looking at funding opportunities to build a new emergency room at the Lakeshore General to replace the one built in 1992, which was supposed to be a temporary structure. Turmel said they should have more information on this within the year.

As for the HSSC’s new structure, the immediate task is to get the word out, both within the organization and to the public.

“Now, we’re going to try, as much as possible, to get the information out there,” Turmel said. “What the end goal will be is that the population sees the difference.”