Vaudreuil-Dorion still waiting for news on hospital

Considering that former Minister of Health, Liberal Yves Bolduc made the announcement that a hospital was coming to the region in December 2010, residents are unsure where the new hospital will be constructed, let alone when.

“As of right now, there is nothing new to report as nothing seems to be going forward,” Pilon told The Suburban. “We were supposed to hear last March about the new hospital’s location. then it was April. Then June and then September but nothing has been settled.”

Pilon did praise the work being done by the grassroots Citizens’ Committee for a Hospital in Vaudreuil-Soulanges who recently held a rally at the end of October decrying the lack of progress where 300 supporters for the hospital were in attendance as well as a petition for the hospital’s construction that has garnered more than 43,000 signatures.

“We are still waiting,” said Pilon who said that constituents are telling him the delays for the hospital’s 2018 completion are becoming a “joke. people want the dossier to go ahead and they want the ministry of health to finalize the land, test the soil and begin construction.”

Ariane Lareau, spokesperson for Rejean Hebert, Quebec Health Minister, told The Suburban that “the minister has indicated his desire to go ahead with the project as the region’s population has grown considerably in the last few years and a hospital in the region is important and a necessity.”

Lareau could not specify a precise time table when the land for the hospital would be chosen but said that the decision is likely “weeks away and not months as we know the level of impatience with the citizens on this file but we want to reassure the population that we are working on the hospital.”

She did note that the government has invested seven million dollars for the construction of an ambulatory care centre that should be ready for patients in October 2014.