The magnitude of the first wave of COVID-19 in Quebec was certainly “unprecedented”, but it was not “unpredictable” as several important players in the health system have however suggested.
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This was pleaded by the lawyer for six families of COVID-19 victims who died in CHSLDs in the spring of 2020, Mr.and Patrick Martin-Ménard, at the public inquiry by coroner Géhane Kamel into this tragedy.
After hearing her last witness in the morning, after nearly a year of hearings, the coroner has now moved on to the stage of representations where lawyers for families, unions and establishments will come to report on their conclusions. and their recommendations.
First in line, Mand Martin-Ménard painted a portrait of the situation in Quebec in the first months following the identification of the coronavirus in China, from January to the beginning of March, a period which he describes as a “black hole”.
“The evidence as a whole tends to prove that very little has been done. We are losing precious weeks there,” he said.
“Wake-up call”
During their testimony, the former Minister of Health, Danielle McCann, and the former National Director of Public Health, Dr.r Horacio Arruda, however, claimed to have had suspicions in January that COVID-19 posed a particular risk to the elderly.
However, as demonstrated by the Québec Ombudsman in a damning report tabled last November, no measures specific to CHSLDs were taken before mid-March.
“The real “wake up call” from the government, in relation to the pandemic, came with the presentation of disaster scenarios by the INSPQ (National Institute of Public Health), around March 9, 2020. This is where we finally take into account the extent of the threat to Quebec and put ourselves in crisis management mode. Unfortunately, at that time, it is much too late,” argued Mr.and Martin-Menard.
Quebec had a plan
Quebec, however, had a plan supposed to guide the response of the authorities to the threat of a virus: the Quebec plan to fight an influenza pandemic, developed in 2006.
“We had the tools to avoid finding ourselves in this situation. We had the time, and we had the plan. The fact that we have not done so demonstrates a major shortcoming in our health system,” lamented Ms.and Martin Menard.
The response of the authorities, at the beginning of March, therefore resulted in “draconian” and “improvised” actions, such as the exclusion of caregivers from CHSLDs, in the hope of making up for lost time.
“It’s the most abominable thing in this whole story. We did it without really considering the impact it would have on these people. It would have been something avoidable if we had done it differently, ”he then decided.