(Quebec) Administrative rigidity and “distressing loss of meaning”: the Public Protector turns on a yellow light and notes a “dehumanization” of the care and services offered by the Quebec state.
In its annual report, tabled in the National Assembly on Thursday, the watchdog presents several examples of cases of dehumanization. In one case, a man “very weakened by illness”, waiting for medical assistance to die, wanted to keep his only “life companion”: a cat.
But his degenerative condition no longer allowed him to maintain the litter box. However, the CLSC refused to add litter box cleaning to its “care plan.”
The Protector acknowledges that this request did not fit into the “small box”, but the “distress, the solitude” of the man “called for a different response”.
“Support should have been granted to him for humanitarian reasons, beyond the strict interpretation of the program,” the protector laments. After his intervention, the CLSC changed its decision, and the citizen was able to keep his companion.
“The hubbub and indifference” in a CHSLD
The watchdog also witnessed, during an unannounced visit, the serving of a meal delivered in “the hubbub and indifference” in a CHSLD. He observed “cacophony”, “with loud television noise in the background, the workers mechanically helped the residents to eat while talking among themselves”.
“Such a lack of communication, attention and consideration towards CHSLD residents is an example of dehumanization of care and services. In these circumstances, the person is not a guest, they are a user who must be fed in the space-time provided,” he writes.
Tied up, facing a wall, for nothing
With the labor shortage, and the hiring of many new employees who do not always have the necessary training, some find themselves doing “the bare minimum,” according to the Protector.
He also notes that “in accommodation resources, or in hospital or youth centre settings, members of the new staff were abusing control measures, in particular prolonged isolation”, a measure likely to “seriously infringe on fundamental rights”.
Another example: In a hospital, a man in a geriatric unit suffers from a disorder that causes him to hallucinate. For “long periods of time,” the staff strap him to his chair, with a view of the wall, “without any distraction, not even the television,” and this “even in the absence of any justification.”
In detention facilities, inmates “did not have access to spare clothes and underwear” for “several weeks.” “In one case, the person waited two months.”
The protector therefore deplores the reflex of ministries and organizations to put “administrative issues before their major missions with regard to citizens”. Consequence: service disruptions and sometimes unjustified refusals.
- Citizens are unable to reach the Administrative Housing Tribunal by telephone “on matters as crucial as disputes between tenants and landlords”
- The delays for the Director of Civil Status to deliver official documents such as birth or death certificates are sometimes so long that they can “compromise other procedures for citizens”.
- In some cases, victims have to wait nearly two years before receiving financial assistance from the General Directorate for Compensation for Victims of Crime.
- Not all the problems are solved with SAAQclic: beyond the “tumultuous transition” of last winter, problems persist, such as “driving license suspensions without reason, or amounts mistakenly withdrawn from citizens’ bank accounts. Unfortunately for them, they were not able to reach the SAAQ by phone.