She was forced to travel hours to give birth — a growing reality for families in Gaspé, Que.

When Camille Arsenault felt her water break in her home in Gaspésie, Que., she rushed to her local hospital in anticipation of her daughter, Olivia’s, arrival. 

But as she pulled up to the Hôpital de Maria with her partner, both feeling the jitters of first-time parenthood, she was disappointed to find out she would have to spend the next two hours lying in the back of an ambulance because of a lack of staff at the hospital. 

She was transferred to the Hôpital de Chandler – more than 130 kilometres away. She had been warned about a week earlier that it might be a possibility but was told to head to Maria nonetheless.

“We found ourselves further away from our home, from our family,” she said, adding she was grateful, at least, that staff at the Chandler hospital took good care of her. 

“It’s concerning because we don’t know in what direction we’re heading and there are [hospital] closures everywhere,” she said. 

Arsenault is far from the only woman who was forced to travel for hours to give birth. Several parts of eastern Quebec have seen their obstetrics units temporarily shut down because of staffing issues in recent months.

But the situation in the Gaspé, and especially the Haute-Gaspésie, has been especially dire over the last year. 

In 2025, the Hôpital de Sainte-Anne-des-Monts was closed for a total of 133 days, compared to just 27 days the previous year. 

The women at that hospital are often sent to Matane, in the Lower St. Lawrence, about an hour away. 

“Depending of course on where they are in their pregnancy, we encourage them to settle in or temporarily move to Matane, where we pay for accommodations for them,” said Jean St-Pierre, deputy executive director of the CISSS de la Gaspésie. 

The CISSS was unable to say just how many of the region’s women had to be redirected in the past year.

The regional health authority announced 2026 would also kick off with an obstetrics services disruption at Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, with the department closed between Jan. 1 and 7.

According to St-Pierre, the issue is that the area only has one obstetrics nurse working full time, with five other nursing positions yet to be filled. 

While the regional health authority also uses private agencies and a network of nurses that serve eastern Quebec when need be, St-Pierre said it isn’t enough to prevent the closures.

He warns the hospital’s obstetrics unit will likely shut down again for one out of every two weeks in the coming months. 

“This is really not the situation we want,” St-Pierre said. “We are actively trying to pursue our efforts to offer services to pregnant women in the Gaspé.” 

When it comes to the Haute-Gaspésie, St-Pierre says specialized nurses often aren’t satisfied because there aren’t enough women giving birth at the Sainte-Anne-des-Monts hospital. 

On average, between 40 and 70 babies are delivered at the hospital every year. 

“A nurse who is really interested in obstetrics will probably choose a bigger centre where there are births every day,” St-Pierre said. 

On days when there are no births, the obstetrics nurses are assigned to other departments. 

Véronique Ouellette, co-director of the Maison des Familles Haute-Gaspésie, believes that is part of the issue. 

“Several nurses have quit because of the working conditions,” she said. “There’s just one nurse who is basically running the department and she will likely run out of steam as well.” 

Ouellette says some women are forced to give birth in the emergency room as a result, with staff less experienced in childbirth.

Other hospitals in the Gaspé also saw service disruptions in their obstetrics units in the past year. 

The unit at the Hôpital de Gaspé was closed for 10 days in 2025 and was closed again from Dec. 30 until Jan. 5. 

The hospital in the Baie des Chaleurs was closed for 14 days last year and the one in Maria also saw service disruptions, including one lasting several days at the end of December.

St-Pierre says the CISSS has been searching for more nurses for the obstetrics units for months, trying everything from career fairs to social media posts, and promoting the region’s natural beauty and outdoor spaces to attract more staff. 

But it’s all been to no avail.

The regional health authority organized a committee to look into the issue and come up with solutions last year, but Ouellette, who was consulted by that committee, says she hasn’t seen any movement.

The CISSS has also been consulting with authorities in other regions, like the Lower St. Lawrence, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Quebec City, to get to the root of the issue in eastern Quebec.

“I’m starting to have less and less hope that there will be a solution that will be put in place,” Ouellette said.

She would like to see the government step in.

Parti-Québécois health critic Joël Arseneau, the MNA for the nearby Magdalen Islands, has been calling on the province to grant more resources in obstetrics in eastern Quebec for years.

He accuses the government of treating women in the Gaspé as “second-class citizens.”

“If I were to illustrate in one example how Santé Québec has failed through and through, it’s looking at the obstetrics units being closed here and there and everywhere,” Arseneau said in an interview. “It’s like if we are understaffed, the first unit that gets axed is obstetrics.”

Health Minister Sonia Bélanger declined a request for comment.

“Santé Québec is fully aware of the serious challenges several regions are facing in obstetrics, notably because of a lack of gynecologists and obstetricians” the Crown corporation says in a written statement. “

It goes on to say that it is carrying out work to determine whether there needs to be an overhaul of the way obstetrics services are organized in the province.