(Montreal) Northern Quebec health officials say they are trying to hire more Inuit nurses and staff after a Coroner’s Office report released last month linked the deaths of ten infants in the overcrowded region.
Posted at 9:22 p.m.
A recruitment campaign is underway to hire more nurses to vaccinate children against diseases and provide preventive health services to Inuit communities in Nunavik, Ariane Bedard, spokesperson for the Régie régionale de health and social services in Nunavik.
Mme Bedard said the health agency also tries to hire Inuit staff who understand residents’ needs and who can speak Inuktitut. But she did not say how the agency would directly address the overcrowding concerns mentioned in coroner Geneviève Thériault’s report.
She referred all questions about overcrowding to the local housing office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The situation is very complex, underlines Mr.me Bedard, who adds that the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly weakened front-line services in Nunavik, as elsewhere.
In her report, Coroner Thériault called on the provincial and federal governments to allocate the necessary resources to quickly provide safe social housing to families in northern Quebec. It focused on the death of three-month-old Jaylen Etok, who died in April 2021 in the Inuit village of Kangiqsualujjuaq.
The infant slept in the same bed as the adults because he did not have a crib or crib, Ms.me Theriault. According to her, the versions of what happened to the child are contradictory.
On April 25, 2021, the infant was sleeping on his back on a double bed. The adults at the home had consumed alcohol and some had used cannabis, the coroner said. An adult fell asleep in the same bed as the little boy between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Witness accounts differ, but a second adult may have fallen asleep in the bed some time later, Ms.me Theriault.
The coroner said that according to one version of events, the second adult entered the room and found the boy unresponsive and lying on his back on the bed, away from the first adult. According to another version of the events, the first adult woke up and found the boy under the arm of the second adult, who woke up and rolled over the baby or held him tightly.
Mme Thériault said it was impossible for him to determine which version is more plausible.
The cause of death of little Jaylen Etok remains undetermined. The coroner therefore indicated that it was difficult for her to conclude whether the death was attributable to asphyxiation by suffocation.
However, she also reached similar conclusions in cases involving nine other infants in Nunavik who also died in 2021 of undetermined causes or sudden infant death syndrome. The coroner said overcrowding was a recurring risk factor in all of these deaths.
In his opinion, to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome in Nunavik, “several things should be put in place”. Mme Thériault said that it seemed urgent to ensure that each family had access to healthy housing of a size adapted to the size of the household.
Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada said in an email that in 2022 the federal government has earmarked $845 million over five years for Indigenous housing. The department did not say if any measures were being taken in the short term to reduce overcrowding in the Nunavik region of Quebec.
The First Nations and Inuit Relations Secretariat of Quebec said it would not comment until it reads the coroner’s report dated Oct. 6.
Meanwhile, Quebec’s health ministry said it would “take note” of the coroner’s report. In an email, spokesperson Marie-Claude Lacasse said that within three months, the province will act on the coroner’s recommendation that the department rapidly increase the number of front-line workers in Nunavik, such as elders. -women, family physicians and paediatricians.
This dispatch was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta Exchanges and The Canadian Press for the news.