Surgeries resume, ambulances return to Montreal’s Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital after storm-caused power outage

Operating room activities were given the green light to resume at Montreal’s Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital (MRH) Wednesday after “repair work” was completed to fix damages caused by the previous night’s storm.

More than a dozen emergency surgeries were delayed at the hospital after a storm led to a power outage around 8:30 pm., leaving several critical units in the dark.

Things were back up and running Wednesday afternoon.

“We are confident that we will be able to supply power to the operating room under all circumstances,” a spokesperson for the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal said in an emailed statement to CityNews.

“At this time, we are unable to resume the operating schedule initially scheduled for today. However, we will now be able to treat urgent cases and hospitalized patients.”

The statement adds a previously implemented ambulance diversion — where trauma cases were being diverted from MRH to other hospitals — was lifted at 2 p.m.

Earlier in the day, as of noon, all 30 surgeries scheduled in the operating room had to be cancelled.

“One planned surgery, given its level of urgency, was taken over by our team at Santa Cabrini Hospital,” explained Thaïs Dubé, the communications manager for CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. “To make room for this urgent surgery, three operations planned at Santa Cabrini Hospital had to be postponed.”

The hospital was left in the dark for about an hour after a generator reportedly failed to work, notably in operating rooms.

Dr. François Marquis, the critical chare chief at MRH, was working at the time of the storm.

“All the emergency machines like respirators and infusion pumps and everything went on battery power, so that means that we have one hour from that moment to find a solution,” Marquis said.

Red outlets at the hospital are never supposed to lose electricity in a power outage because a backup generator should take over. To the surprise of Marquis and others, they did lose electricity.

‘It’s the worst hospital’

Operating rooms were shut down, and critical patients were moved to areas of the hospital that still had power.

“All of a sudden there was a big noise, everything went dark, no more light, and everyone panicked. It was hell,” recounted Keven Desautels.

Desautels was waiting for an ultrasound appointment with his pregnant wife when the power suddenly went out, and they were told to go home.

“It’s disorganized, nothing that makes sense here,” he said. “There are holes, it stinks, no cleanliness, and honestly it’s the worst hospital.

“I’m really disappointed that I have to come to this hospital for my unborn child.”

During a heated question period at the National Assembly Wednesday, the Opposition health critic said it was “lucky that nothing bad happened.”

“There were 15 emergency surgeries that were delayed,” said André Fortin, the Liberal MNA for Pontiac.

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé said no patients were in danger.

“In fact, yesterday’s power failure highlighted the instability of the switchover system used to ensure generator power supply to certain emergency sectors,” wrote CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. “These issues were not detected during the weekly inspections. They can only be detected during simulations, which are carried out on a regular basis. The last simulation did not reveal this instability issue.”

Tens of thousands of homes lost power when violent thunderstorms swept across the province Tuesday afternoon and evening. Some regions were hit with hail heavy rain and strong winds reaching over 100 km/h.

The storm also caused damage to the hospital building itself, with windows shattering, and staff were trapped in elevators.

“We had firefighters come in to open the doors and get people out,” Marquis said.

“When we started moving the patients, we moved one to the emergency room that is downstairs, but we decided to move the other patients on the same floor just to stay away from the elevators. It was a concern.”

Hydro-Québec says power was restored by 9:45 p.m., with Santé Québec saying, shortly after, that hospital teams were working to ensure a “normal resumption of services.”

“We would like to acknowledge the work of the teams at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital and the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-Montréal who ensured the power supply was restored …. All patients and staff are safe,” the government agency stated.

“Technical teams were dispatched to the site to carry out emergency work, and power has now been restored,” Luc Fortin, spokesperson for the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, told CityNews Wednesday morning.

“All measures have been taken to ensure the safety of users.”

The hospital has been in the news for several weeks due to the postponement of renovations and its dilapidated state. In a press scrum at the National Assembly Wednesday, Dubé said there were “so many projects” underway in the Quebec Infrastructure Plan (PQI) “that we did not have enough money to start new projects.”

Fortin, who said the situation at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Tuesday night was more akin to a hospital TV drama, is accusing the CAQ government of dragging its feet on renovations.

Dubé said the Quebec government would “find a solution in the coming weeks” so that work could begin.

Marquis thinks the power outage is directly linked to the hospital’s dilapidated state

“The power distribution grid is very, very old, so even if you do everything by the book, the problem is that the device is just past its life,” Marquis said. “So we have to replace, but we have to replace the whole hospital, that’s the issue.”

Dubé defended his party’s record, pointing the finger instead at the previous Liberal administration. The Liberals formed government from 2014 to 2018.

“Do you really think the province’s health infrastructure deteriorated the day we became elected?” Dubé asked in the National Assembly. “Of course not. It’s been years these projects are delayed. Today, when I’m limited to $3.6 billion — $2 billion to catch up and $1 billion and more to maintain – that’s 38 hospitals and installations that we’re in the process of renovating. That means a catch-up at the entire level of the health network.

“Would we like to do Maisonneuve-Rosemont faster than everything else? Yes, everyone agrees on that. But we have to take on all the projects. Santa Cabrini is right next to it; it was falling apart too. Before we accuse, some people need to look at themselves in the mirror.”

‘Apocalyptic’

The CAQ government was under fire from all fronts Wednesday.

Québec Solidaire co-spokesperson Ruba Ghazal described the situation at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital as “apocalyptic.” “We were lucky because there were no deaths,” she said.

“I don’t understand what the premier is waiting for. Is he waiting for the worst to happen before acting? He should get the project done quickly, right away, now, and stop procrastinating,” she added.

Parti Québécois health critic Joël Arseneau reiterated that what is happening at Maisonneuve-Rosemont right now is “serious.”

“And the CAQ still doesn’t have a plan for modernizing this hospital!” he denounced on X.

Quebec Liberal Party interim leader Marc Tanguay said renovation work on the hospital “must begin this summer.”

‘It’s getting tough’

A health-care worker in orthopedics at Maisonneuve-Rosemont, who spoke to CityNews on the condition of anonymity, said staff at the hospital are feeling the strain.

“We have good people, good doctors, everybody’s doing really their best, and most of them are not complaining at all,” they said. “But it’s getting tough, it’s getting tough because the environment is tough. So things have to be done. It’s just sad politics; we’re spending so much money on troisième lien (between Quebec City and Lévis) and stuff like that, and then we have a hospital right here that needs work.”

The worker also said an often overlooked issue with the hospital is the elevators, calling it a “huge, huge problem.”

“If we would need to evacuate the hospital for any reason, we would be in big trouble. We would be in big trouble because there’s no way we can evacuate that hospital the way it is right now, like no way.”

—With files from La Presse Canadienne and Erin Seize