Ottawa’s Rotel compared to Montreal’s Baffin House

The Baffin health board was so stupid to transfer the patients to Ottawa from Montreal. When you go down south, even for medical, you want to go shopping because its less expensive.

Comparing Ottawa and Montreal:

No Metro, only slow buses;
The stores close at 6:00 p.m.:
No corner stores around to buy soap or lotion etc.;
When the Rotel is full they set you up with a room-mate that you don’t even know;
You have to sleep on the hard bottom part of the bed so that you don’t share the bed with the person;
The lounge that people and little kids go to is a smoking lounge downstairs;
The non-smoking upstairs lounge is usually locked. Elders and others have to cross the road to go eat at the hospital cafeteria;
One dryer and washer, you have to pay for them too.
The service from the Baffin office in Ottawa is not good. In Montreal, the office was right downstairs, with contact with the people who worked there.

In Ottawa:

Nobody knows who the people are who work in the office where we get the appointments and transportation tickets;
Nobody wants to let anyone know where the office is;
Nobody answers the phone when you want to know what time your appointment is or when you want to know if you are going home the next day;
Nobody answers the emergency pager. You try to call them more than five times and never get an answer. Leave a message, they don’t call you back;
No good communication with the patients;
You want to know your appointment times, they don’t let you know. Then you get shit because you weren’t available when you had to go for appointment;
The elders want to go shopping for the things they need. There is no store that is close by, not like the one in Montreal corner store;
Drunk people call your room during the night.
None of this was at the Baffin House in Montreal. There were more medical services and hospitals in Montreal.

The politicians don’t bother to ask the people who have been there before they do a major change. They don’t think about how it will effect the people who use the system.

Like the time zone change, they didn’t even think about the hunters, only office people. Talk to the people, brainstorm, then plan and let people see it first and talk about it before you go with it.

Patients shouldn’t stay at the Rotel. They should have a place like the Baffin House right near a corner store.

Even elders get bored. They want to look around at different things and go shopping at a store that’s close by.

I’m a bilingual Inuk and don’t require special services, but I need a room and to sleep on a real bed by myself. I don’t think that’s a big problem to solve.

(Name withheld by request)
Iqaluit