Montreal facility for Nunavik patients, escorts under fire from users

Here’s a look at the front of YMCA facility on Tupper St. in downtown Montreal where patients and escorts from Nunavik stay. (FILE PHOTO)

The poorly-translated English version of this notice at the downtown residence Nunavik patients and escorts in Montreal says that as of March 1 an 11 p.m. curfew in in place and than no one will be let in to the facility afterwards. (PHOTO HARVESTED FROM FACEBOOK)

Right from the start, the YMCA on Tupper St. in downtown Montreal wasn’t a very popular place for patients and escorts from Nunavik to stay in.

But that was the best option after plans to transform a vacant Chinese hospital in the Villeray neighbourhood of Montreal were abandoned in September 2010 after months of disputes with Villeray residents who said they did not want an Inuit patient boarding home located in the borough.

In 2012, about 6,000 patient and escorts from Nunavik passed through the YMCA at 4039 Tupper St., not far from the intersection of Atwater and St. Catherine streets, an area that’s a magnet for homeless people, addicts and drug peddlers.

The need for a better-located patient residence is something that the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services wants to impress upon Quebec’s new health minister Réjean Hébert when he visits Nunavik this week.

Many Nunavimmiut say their experience at the 150-bed facility also includes uncomfortable mattresses, overheated rooms, a lack of hot water, poor food, with one night’s hot dogs disguised as the next days’ breakfast sausage, as wells as mice, bugs, and a strictly enforced curfew of 11 p.m.

That curfew, which came into force March 1, says no one will be allowed into the facility for any reason after 11 p.m.

The imposition of the curfew enrages many who say they’re being unfairly penalized by the bad behaviour of some who return intoxicated. However, others say the curfew makes it more peaceful for those who want to sleep.

The health board has said it plans to build a 143-bed residence for patients and escorts on the West Island of Montreal, but so far no location has been announced.

Sources say that the recent change in Quebec’s government has forced the health board to start from scratch in convincing the new Parti Québécois government that it’s worth spending money to build or renovate a new Nunavik House.

The search for a good facility began in 2009 when the Northern Quebec Module, which provides services to patients from Nunavik while they’re in Montreal, finally decided to move its offices and Nunavik House out of a crime-ridden stretch of St. Jacques St. West in 2011.

Then, the planned move to peaceful Villeray was cancelled after some local residents and borough council members said a patient boarding home could bring unwanted crime and social problems to neighbourhood.