The revamped website of Montreal’s health and social services agency has a brand new look – and it’s all in French, even though bilingual services are guaranteed by law.

So where does that leave Montrealers who are not fluent en français?

The English version is to go live by the end of July – about two months after the site’s inauguration in French.

The website, Portail Santé Montréal, is the virtual door into the myriad health services offered by the agency. The old version was bilingual.

A study done for Health Canada shows “compelling evidence that language barriers have an adverse effect on initial access to health services.”

Health critics are not impressed by the delay of the English site, calling it a denial of services and a violation of the spirit of the Health and Social Services Act.

Language should not be a barrier to health care in Quebec, said Paul Brunet, a patient-rights advocate and president of the Conseil pour la protection des maladies du Québec.

The French-only site is a breach of health etiquette in a province mandated to provide bilingual health care, Brunet said.

“They could have waited and launched the site in both languages,” he said.

A Google search of Montreal Health and Social Services still turns up the agency’s former English-language site. But the site no longer works.

Imagine dialing 811 or 911 and not getting information “because they don’t understand you,” Brunet said.

“It’s a virtual door and it’s just as important as a physical door considering the amount of health information people seek on the Internet.”

David Levine, president and director general of the Montreal Health and Social Service Agency, was not available to comment Thursday.

But agency officials say they are not happy about the unilingual site, explaining that the delay is a problem of translation.

The portal was initially created in French, and the English translation is not ready. Agency officials could not explain why they didn’t wait to launch the site.

See: Montreal Gazette