The former Minister of Health, Danielle McCann, held Thursday to “clarify” things about the transfer of seniors from hospitals to CHSLDs, in the midst of the first wave of COVID-19.
There were “below 1000” transfers of this kind in March 2020, the equivalent of 20% more than in February “, she declared from the first hour of her testimony to the public inquiry into the deaths that occurred in CHSLDs in Quebec in the spring of 2020.
“I really want to clarify that this was not a massive transfer of the elderly to CHSLDs. And it was clear that the pd-g. had to have the resources to accommodate them. I wanted to clarify the point, ”she insisted.
As of April 10, 2020, nearly half of the deaths associated with COVID-19 were recorded in CHSLDs. Despite this, Quebec continued, until that date, to take seniors out of hospitals to send them to CHSLDs. At the time, “the elderly worried us and we were afraid that they were in the hospital,” recalled Ms. McCann to justify this decision.
“We had seen what was happening in Italy and we were really worried that it would happen in Quebec”, she also declared during her presentation. She recalled that during the very first emergency meeting about COVID-19, on March 9, 2020, the national director of public health, Horacio Arruda, presented a scenario according to which 30,000 people could be hospitalized in Quebec. He then predicted that 55,000 people could die due to COVID-19 and therefore, the idea of containment was discussed, said the former minister.
Still, the transfers of elderly people from hospitals to CHSLDs have taken away “a lot of leeway” to the latter, commented Jacques Ramsay, the doctor who assists the coroner Géhane Kamel in his investigation.
“I understand that it is a small number, but it is still a significant number, in the sense that the CHSLDs have lost the agility that they should have had”, he declared.
More details will follow.