Did you get involved in the many investigations supposed to shed light on the tragedy of CHSLDs during the first wave of COVID-19?
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
You are not alone. After a year of work, coroner Géhane Kamel herself was furious at “not being able to have a story that stands”. And blamed a chronology of events “different according to the actors”.
Unfortunately, it is not the excellent book that our colleagues Gabrielle Duchaine, Katia Gagnon and Ariane Lacoursière are publishing these days that adds to the coherence of the narrative provided by the government.
This book indeed reveals… even more contradictions. To say this raises questions is an understatement.
Quebecers are still trying to understand how the state was able to transfer hundreds of seniors from hospitals to CHSLDs when the pandemic hit. This decision, as we know, had terrible consequences. Poorly prepared, CHSLDs have turned into nests of outbreaks.
No less than 5060 people – the book is titled 5060 in their memory – died there during the first two waves. As the animator Paul Arcand reminds us in the preface to the book, it is more than one and a half times the toll of September 11.
If only out of respect for the relatives of the victims, we owe them clear explanations.
However, two years after the events, these are only muddled.
Take the words of the Minister responsible for Seniors and Caregivers, Marguerite Blais.
Six months before her testimony before coroner Géhane Kamel, Mr.me Blais spoke to our reporters. She then told how she and her chief of staff, Pascale Fréchette, opposed the transfer of patients to CHSLDs.
“We scream, we scream, Pascale and I. We scream all the time, ”says the minister in particular.
Mme Blais claims to have “spoken loudly” about it. We read that his chief of staff threatened to resign if the transfers continued.
Those who watched Marguerite Blais’ testimony before the coroner risk falling out of their chairs.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The Minister responsible for Seniors and Caregivers, Marguerite Blais, during her testimony before Coroner Géhane Kamel last January
Because on this platform, Mme Rather, Blais asserted that CHSLDs weren’t on anyone’s radar in the spring of 2020. When asked for examples of concerns she allegedly raised at the government’s crisis unit, she provided…none.
It is difficult, faced with these contradictions, not to conclude that Mr.me Blais changed his version so as not to embarrass the government.
We are not talking about a peccadillo here. We are talking about a minister who is contradicting herself about what is undoubtedly the biggest tragedy in modern Quebec history.
These gray areas give ammunition to those who demand a public inquiry into the management of the pandemic by the Legault government. We have already come out in favor of a targeted commission, which would not redo all the work already done. We still consider it necessary.
Why scratch the same sore? Several investigations have already looked into the matter. And there is no shortage of recommendations to implement to improve the health network.
It’s true. It is also true that a commission of inquiry has a real danger: that of paralyzing the system at the very moment when the government is trying to “refound” it.
But a health system is not only made up of budgets and structures. It is also made up of people who, within these structures, make decisions. However, it is precisely their behavior that is the subject of questions.
Have we listened to whistleblowers? What reflexes and what attitudes led to errors?
The book suggests, for example, that some senior civil servants sought more to reassure politicians than to provide them with accurate portraits of the situation. To the point where the secretary general of the government even mandated “spies” to listen to a meeting of the crisis unit in order to find out if the reality on the ground was indeed reported!
The pandemic offers a rare opportunity to examine how civil servants and elected officials in the machinery of government respond in times of crisis. There are valuable lessons to be learned.
But for that, we need clear answers. We must find a way to obtain them without slowing down the reforms underway.
Because these answers, the Legault government owes them to us.