dilapidated state of the hospital<\/a>. <\/p>\nThere’s even a dedicated code for major flooding incidents at the hospital \u2014 a system that was put in place 11 years ago. According to T\u00e9treault, last year alone, the hospital saw 14 such alerts.<\/p>\n
She’s part of a coalition fighting for the construction of a new regional hospital and says the group has been sounding the alarm about issues plaguing the current facility for the past two years.<\/p>\n
“I’m a doctor, my role is to defend my population,” T\u00e9treault said.<\/p>\n
“My population needs a new hospital. My population needs an emergency plan. The government is supposed to get that for us.”<\/p>\n
Motion adopted urging Legault government to act<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Health Minister Christian Dub\u00e9 told Radio-Canada he wanted an explanation as to why major flooding keeps happening at the hospital.<\/p>\n
“We understand that renovations are needed and that the hospital needs to be rebuilt,” he said, “but at the same time, with successive water damage incidents, there must be something more to understand.”<\/p>\n
T\u00e9treault countered that she wished the minister had asked that question sooner, explaining that the sterilization unit and machines used to clean medical materials at the hospital are too small, leading to overuse.<\/p>\n
“Because we don’t have space, the only way to get our operating room functional to meet the targets is to overuse them,” she said, also noting the hospital was built 80 years ago.<\/p>\n
“The pipes are very old and it’s complicated to do renovation here because there is asbestos.” <\/p>\n
While the wait for a new hospital has been long, the project might now be a step closer to becoming reality.<\/p>\n
Late Tuesday, the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois (PQ) tabled a motion at the National Assembly calling on the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec government to include the construction of a new Drummondville hospital in Quebec’s next infrastructure plan.<\/p>\n
The motion was adopted unanimously, with PQ health critic Joel Arseneau saying it will hold the government to task and ensure the CAQ makes good on its promise. <\/p>\n
Quebec’s infrastructure plan is released annually as part of the province’s expenditure budget.<\/p>\n
‘We owe it to the patients,’ says Dub\u00e9’s office<\/p>\n
In a written statement to CBC News, the health minister’s office wouldn’t say if the new hospital would make the list of major projects this year, but agreed the needs in the region are great.<\/p>\n
“Investing in this central hospital for the region is necessary: \u200b\u200bthat is our intention and that is what we are doing,” the statement reads. <\/p>\n
Dub\u00e9’s office confirmed initial preparations are underway with more details to be released “once the hospital and its teams have completed this work.” <\/p>\n
“We will be monitoring this project very closely, as we owe it to the patients and employees of the Centre-du-Qu\u00e9bec region.”<\/p>\n
The statement concludes by blaming previous governments for underinvesting in maintenance, with places like Drummondville and other regions suffering the consequences.<\/p>\n
“We are correcting this,” the statement says. <\/p>\n
The Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec government has been in power since 2018 and is up for re-election in the 2026 provincial election to be held in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-342922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Blankets](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765643470_861_default.jpg\")
A clean-up operation was underway on Monday in a waiting area at the Drummondville hospital following flooding. (Name withheld )<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765427529_139_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n