(Québec) Le ministre de la Santé et des Services sociaux, Christian Dubé, demande que les directives appliquées dans les résidences privées pour aînés (RPA) soient révisées pour tenir compte d’Omicron, beaucoup moins virulent que les variants précédents. Des voix s’élèvent pour dénoncer les effets dévastateurs du confinement sur les aînés, pour la plupart triplement vaccinés.
Publié à 14h23
Le Regroupement québécois des résidences pour aînés (RQRA) dénonce des mesures trop strictes de confinement et la « rigidité » des CIUSSS et CISSS dans leur applicabilité, rapportait jeudi La Presse. Le RQRA réclame à son tour un calendrier de déconfinement alors que les Québécois se préparent à dire adieu à l’« essentiel » des consignes sanitaires à compter du 14 mars.
« J’ai demandé à la Santé publique et à l’INSPQ de refaire un tour de roue dans les prochains jours », a expliqué le ministre Dubé, au Salon bleu. Il souhaite que les directives et consignes de prévention et contrôle des infections soient revues pour tenir compte du variant Omicron. « Le directeur de la santé publique [le Dr Luc Boileau] said it: there are modifications with Omicron that we must make to manage the crisis,” he added.
It is certain that these conditions [en RPA] need to be updated and that’s why I tell the people listening to us [jeudi] : we are on it, then there will be changes in all the CISSSs and CIUSSSs in the coming days.
Christian Dubé, Minister of Health and Social Services
According to the RQRA, the health instructions do not take into account the fact that the majority of residents have received three doses of vaccine. Seniors in private residences, for the most part independent, ask nothing better than to learn, too, “to live with the virus”, to use the words of Prime Minister François Legault on Tuesday. However, they find themselves isolated as soon as two cases of COVID-19 are detected.
Discussions at the Blue Room
“The condition of seniors is deteriorating. You wouldn’t do that to an animal. We can’t do that to our seniors,” said RQRA President and CEO Marc Fortin. The Press Thursday.
Remarks taken up Thursday morning at the Blue Room by the Liberal MP for Fabre, Monique Sauvé. “In this pandemic, we have too often forgotten our elders. It presses. Can we think of them, this time, and more than quickly? “, she launched to the Minister of Health.
“The deputy, she is right, we have to be quick because our people need air, our people need help,” replied Mr. Dubé. “We in government are overly empathetic to the difficult situation that many of our seniors are living in RPAs. I said it before, I have my mother who is in RPA and who gives me some elements, ”he added.
The latter claims to have also reiterated to the leaders of the health establishments that the situation is no longer the same as during the first wave of the pandemic, which hit hard the accommodation environments for the elderly.
Opposition reactions
To know that these people are repeatedly isolated, often five days at a time, ten days at a time, but repeatedly, it makes them carry an immense weight. […] This means that seniors have a loneliness that is disproportionate at the moment, and it is the responsibility of the government to look into this to ensure that we give them the maximum number of opportunities not to be alone.
André Fortin, parliamentary leader of the Quebec Liberal Party
I invite the government and Public Health to pay very close attention to what is happening right now among our seniors, in particular to their mental health. We have to find the right balance between limiting the transmission of the virus and not overwhelming them further with loneliness and then isolation. It’s a delicate balance to find, but you have to be able to find it.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire
And there, we know that the mental health of our elders as of our young people is a consideration, but there is not really… we do not have the impression that this consideration really weighed heavily in the balance.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, leader of the Parti Québécois