Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital has been granted university status, Quebec Health Minister Sonia Bélanger announced Tuesday.
The designation as a university hospital “is the highest recognition there is for a health establishment in Quebec,” Bélanger said during a press conference at the hospital, praising the institution for achievements in research, teaching and care.
No added funding is tied to the title, though Bélanger said the government would consider the hospital’s new status when drawing up future budgets.
The designation will also allow the hospital to better collaborate across the health network and attract new talent, Bélanger said.
Now renamed the Jewish General University Hospital, a spokesperson for Bélanger said it is the sixth in Quebec to receive university status.
The hospital is already affiliated with McGill University — though separate from the McGill University Health Centre network.
“The easy answer is it isn’t going to change much,” said Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, Jewish General and Santé Québec West-Central Montreal Health and Social Services University Network president, when asked how the announcement would change operations at the hospital.
“For the people working here, it will give them a sense of pride that the excellent work they do and the research they have contributed to has gotten appropriate recognition.”
“Excellence in health care isn’t created by decree,” he said, but is “built over decades by people who mobilize every day and refuse to lower standards.”
The hospital “waited for a long time” to receive the university designation, Rosenberg said, saying it already operates at the standard expected of a university hospital. The hospital’s “work in domains including the fight against cancer, digital health and virtual health care are now studied well beyond our borders,” he said.
Crowded ER not a concern: hospital president
Operating one of Montreal’s most crowded emergency rooms, the Jewish General had a stretcher occupancy rate of 275 per cent as of 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Asked whether the hospital had plans to lower the rate, Rosenberg said the stretcher occupancy rate “means nothing to us.”
“The more important numbers to look at are what are the consequences,” he said, asserting that the hospital “has the most performant emergency room in Montreal,” with relatively short wait times and a low rate of patients who leave without receiving care.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the average non-priority patient was waiting roughly five and a half hours to see a doctor, longer than the four-and-a-half-hour wait time at the Montreal General, but far shorter than the nearly 10-hour wait time at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM).