The lack of adequate health care is said to have played a role in the deaths of several inmates in recent years at the Montreal Detention Center, commonly known as Bordeaux prison.
• Read also: Trafficker acquitted after being ‘forced’ to carry drugs to jail
• Read also: Death in Bordeaux prison: relatives of Nicous D’Andre Spring want answers
• Read also: More and more drone incidents in Quebec prisons
That’s according to coroner’s reports, according to the ‘Globe and Mail’, which looked at deaths at the facility over the past decade.
Remember that a coroner makes a report after each death at the detention center. Although the majority of the cases are suicides, six deaths are believed to be cases involving deficiencies in physical health care, including delay or refusal to provide treatment to sick inmates.
In the most recent case where lack of care preceded a death in Bordeaux, a 64-year-old prisoner complained of abdominal pain for more than ten days before being taken to hospital. Christian Barbier “probably died of fulminant hepatitis” in March 2021, according to a coroner’s report from April 2022.
“It would have been desirable for him to be hospitalized more quickly,” wrote coroner Éric Lépine. This could have “ensured him a less painful and more dignified end of life”.
Mr. Lépine recommended that management “reassess the quality of supervision” of the care received by Mr. Barbier, and that an administrative investigation be ordered. This investigation is continuing, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
Coroner Éric Lépine was not the first to make such recommendations after deaths in Bordeaux, Quebec’s largest provincial correctional facility. In an email sent to the Globe and Mail, professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, Sandra Lehalle, lamented that correctional officers seem to ignore comments from coroners.
“Unfortunately, the same issues continue to arise,” she wrote. Correctional services do not sufficiently incorporate lessons learned from past deaths into their practices.”
Bordeaux prison was recently involved in a drama after the death of an illegally detained young black man, Nicous D’Andre Spring, who died on December 24, after the intervention of correctional officers. The Chief Coroner of Quebec has also announced a public inquiry into this file.