Montreal hospital says foreign patient didn’t get special treatment

MONTREAL – A Montreal hospital says it didn’t compromise the care of average Quebecers when it admitted a Kuwaiti woman for emergency surgery under a private contract worth nearly $200,000.

Ian Popple, a spokesman for the Montreal University Health Centre, says the provincial health minister at the time approved the case on compassionate grounds.

Popple says the woman needed specialized cardiac care unavailable in her own country.

The woman was brought to Montreal in December 2011 and treated by doctors outside their regular hours and in facilities that were not being used due to budget cuts.

Current Quebec Health Minister Rejean Hebert says he understands acting on compassionate grounds but Quebecers should have priority in health care in their own hospitals.

Popple insists no Quebecers were deprived of care and that the Kuwaiti patient was charged three times what a Quebec patient would have paid in accordance with government rules.