Quick health care in Hawkesbury draws Quebecers across border ...

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Quebecers frustrated with long wait times at the emergency room are flocking to Ontario to take advantage of speedy, free health care in Hawkesbury.

Crossing the provincial border to get faster treatment is a growing trend in La Belle Province, with more Quebec residents making the journey each year, Le Journal de Montreal reports.

While it often takes as long as nine to 10 hours to get into emergency rooms in Montreal, Quebecers are able to see a doctor in as little as one to three hours at Hawkesbury?s General Hospital.

?It?s extraordinary,? Monique Taillefer told le Journal as she left the Ontario hospital.

?We don?t have to wait! The service is incredible.?

The biggest selling point is that Hawkesbury accepts Quebec health cards, which charges their fees directly to their health plans.

Taillefer?s experience is hardly an isolated case.

Between 2007 and 2011, the number of Quebecers crossing the border to cut down on their wait times has doubled.

But it?s the hospital?s parking lot that tells the true tale.

Nearly every second licence plate hails from Quebec, le Journal reports.

Even Gatineau residents are clueing in to the shorter wait times and driving to Hawkesbury.

?When it goes well at the emergency room, I only wait for an hour,? said Marie-Claude Blais, who travelled from Gatineau on Monday to get treated.

?In Quebec, it always takes eight or nine hours. So it?s really worthwhile.?

It doesn?t hurt that Quebecers migrating to the small bilingual community east of Ottawa are served in perfect French, and all of the hospital?s signage is bilingual.

?We?re better served in French here than at Lakeshore Hospital,? Vaudreuil resident Nadine Gourjade told le Journal. ?That?s really something we don?t quite understand in Quebec.?

But Denise Picard-Stencer, director of clinical care at the Ottawa Hospital, said the same commute doesn?t hold true between Gatineau and Ottawa.

?We haven?t seen an increase in Quebec residents coming to our hospitals, mainly because there are so many services already available in the Gatineau area,? she explained.

Yet for many in Montreal, the service in Ontario is worth coming back for.

?We can?t ask for better,? Monique Gravel told le Journal. Her husband had just gone through surgery in Hawkesbury.

?He was operated on within a few weeks. In Quebec, it would have taken seven months.?

Source: http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/11/13/quick-health-care-in-hawkesbury-draws-quebecers-across-border

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