The Superior Court of Quebec authorizes a class action against public CHSLDs in the province “in which there has been an outbreak of 25% or more cases of COVID-19”. Users, spouses, natural caregivers, children, grandchildren and heirs of deceased residents will be able to be part of it.
The judgment was delivered on Monday. The authorization request targeted all public CHSLDs in the province that experienced an outbreak of COVID-19 during the first two waves of the pandemic. Jean-Pierre Daubois, who lost his 94-year-old mother in April 2020, alleged that the “faulty and negligent” conduct of health establishments and authorities is “the direct and probable cause of the outbreaks” which “caused at least 5,347 deaths” in CHSLDs between March 13, 2020 and March 20, 2021.
The Superior Court ultimately restricted the group targeted by the collective action to establishments with a proportion of 25% or more people infected with COVID-19. According to Me Patrick Martin-Ménard, who represents Jean-Pierre Daubois, the lawsuit could affect 118 CHSLDs, or thousands of residents, their loved ones and family members. “It’s a real tragedy that happened in the spring of 2020,” the lawyer commented Tuesday during a press conference. “9,117 people were infected with COVID in public, private, approved and non-approved CHSLDs in the province. 3,669 died,” he recalled.
A tablet plan
Me Martin-Ménard maintains that the Quebec authorities had developed an intervention plan in 2006 to deal with a pandemic, modeled on that of the World Health Organization (WHO), but that this plan was never implemented. day. “We tableted it and forgot it, so that when the threat of COVID appeared, in January 2020, we were not ready and no one reacted at that time,” he said. -he said.
Even if COVID was little known at that time, “we had enough information to know what threat we were exposed to,” according to the lawyer. Jean-Pierre Daubois criticizes the authorities for having demonstrated “improvisation” when the pandemic broke out and for having concentrated resources in the hospital environment, which meant that CHSLD residents were unable to receive the care required.
Originally, Jean-Pierre Daubois wanted to file a lawsuit on behalf of residents of the CHSLD Sainte-Dorothée, where his mother resided and where 218 residents were infected, leading to at least 101 deaths. The Court, however, suggested extending the procedure to all public CHSLDs.
A disaster that could have been avoided
Nearly four years later, Jean-Pierre Daubois admitted that he was still angry because, according to him, this whole tragedy could have been avoided. He said that it was only when he had permission, with his sister, to visit his mother in April 2020 that he measured the scale of the “catastrophe”. “This is an outbreak that started because two employees reported to their supervisor that they thought they were infected with COVID. They were ordered to go to work because otherwise they could face disciplinary action. This is not unique to Sainte-Dorothée and has been repeated throughout the health network. It was a total improvisation. »
The collective action opens the door to compensation for residents of the CHSLDs concerned, their loved ones and natural caregivers in particular. Me Martin-Ménard estimates that several thousand, or even tens of thousands, of people could be affected by the lawsuit. However, he did not want to comment on the total amount of sums that could be granted. “This is a question that is very hypothetical at this stage because there are several issues. We do not know exactly the number of members in each category, in particular the relatives of the residents,” explained the lawyer.
The accusations made by the plaintiff will, however, have to be proven in court during the debates on the merits, which should take place in the coming months, unless the decision rendered by the Superior Court is appealed. The case is complex and the procedures could stretch over several years, said Mr.e Martin-Ménard.
The court will have to determine in particular whether the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the national director of public health committed errors during the first wave, by prohibiting transfers of CHSLD residents to hospitals or by failing to protect those – this although they were identified in January 2020 as part of the most vulnerable population.