KMHC: 40 Years and The New Expansion

The Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre celebrated the 40th anniversary last night of the signing of the historic agreement between Kahnawà:ke and Quebec that resulted in the construction of a new hospital. Today, on Tetawathartha, the Partyline talkshow, guests included Valerie Diabo, Robin Guyer, Director of Nursing and Community Care  Sha’teiohserí:io Patton, the Communications/Public Relations Officer at the KMHC. Patton discussed her experiencing hosting the 40th anniversary event:

“Something that I don’t necessarily boast about much is my ability for the French language but I am a pretty good speaker, I can understand very well, communicate with anyone who speaks, so, it wasn’t necessarily a challenge, but it takes a lot of brainwork to do 3 languages, one after the other. Honestly, it was motivational for me because I definitely should use my 3 languages more than I do, it’s a little push to do that more!”

Robin Guyer, Director of Nursing and Community Care at the KMHC on the current expansion and renovation project. The finish line in site:

“When that agreement was signed, at the time were going from 32 long-term care beds up to 58 long-term care beds. Tomorrow, Friday, is our final admission for long-term care and this will be the 1st time, since that agreement was signed, since we did the expansion, that all of our long-term care beds will be full. We are very excited about this, it took us some time to get there because of the renovation itself and then Covid hit, staffing issues, we had to re-use beds in certain areas of the hospital in to other ways. So, we’re very excited about this to finally be at this point and we think it’s a reason to celebrate and acknowledge.”

Valerie Diabo on all the hospital roles being of vital importance:

“Every position at the hospital is important, whether you’re nursing, administration, house keeping, maintenance, security, every position at Kateri is so important. Because we all play an role to make our environment as safe as possible for our residents, to provide the best care we can and we’re all a team in that, so nobody’s job is more important than the other, because we all need each other to provide the best quality care we can to our community members.”