(Quebec) The deputy for Duplessis and spokesperson for the Parti Québécois (PQ) for seniors, Lorraine Richard, once again calls for a public and independent inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic, this time on the management during the first three waves.
Her request, she said, is made in the name of transparency, but also in memory of the thousands of seniors who have lost their lives due to the coronavirus.
The MP is demanding that all the reports, all the documents and all the analysis grids that were filled out during the visits made to the CHSLDs during the first three waves of the pandemic be revealed.
In his opinion, it is also essential to know the content of the testimony heard at the hearings of the coroner’s inquest. She denounces the existence of verbal directives and the possible destruction of inspection reports.
Lorraine Richard believes that we must hear the leaders of the CISSS and the CIUSSS, but also the members of the crisis unit.
Almost three months ago, in the wake of the unveiling of the preliminary report by the Commissioner for Health and Welfare (CSBE) Joanne Castonguay on the performance of care and services for the elderly housed during the first wave of the pandemic of COVID-19, the Parti Québécois has called for a public and independent inquiry into this first wave. This had caused 5,157 deaths in shelters, or 90% of the total deaths from COVID-19 in Quebec.
Commissioner Castonguay wrote in particular that the elderly had been the victims of deficient and disorganized governance, that there had been no overall strategy to offer a uniform quality of care and a lack of information to managers so that they could make the right decisions.
She recalled that over the past 20 years, under several governments, numerous reports have been produced on the shortcomings in the management of services offered in residential centers. She believed that the responsibility for the fiasco should be collective.
Lorraine Richard invites the government of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) to fully participate in the public and independent inquiry.