The information which multiplies on the load shedding accentuates the anguish of Lise Maurais, whose 88-year-old mother is awaiting a hip operation. “She even asked for assisted dying, and there is nothing we can do to get her out of this situation. ”
In a rehabilitation center for three months, her mother “knows that she may have to wait a long time, confined either in her bed or in the room she has to share with someone else. His only distraction is going for a walk in the hallway, but that is no longer allowed ”.
Visits are not always authorized either, Mr.me Maurais mostly hears from her by phone.
Speaking to her, we can hardly recognize her, her morale is affected, and she hardly eats any more… This worries us enormously.
Lise maurais
With metastatic cancer, Marilou Gougeon was supposed to have her annual medical imaging exam this month. She still doesn’t have a date. “I am told it will be fine in February… maybe.” ”
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARILOU GOUGEON
Marilou Gougeon
“When you have metastatic cancer, a delay of one month can make a big difference,” she says, fearing that the delay will be even longer.
The Dr Réjean Thomas, founder of the Montreal clinic L’Actuel and specialist in AIDS, is at the forefront of the significant anxiety of patients. “This week I had to tell two of my patients that I suspect they have lung cancer. Normally, we hope that they will be seen by a specialist soon, but under the current circumstances, I had to tell them that I did not know how it was going to turn out. ”
For the past week, he has said he has felt that the anger of the patients is skyrocketing. “Against the unvaccinated, but also a lot against the government, which I haven’t felt so far. We see a lot of distress. […] I have a patient who went crazy for 40 minutes because he was angry with Public Health. ”
The problem is even wider than the load shedding, argues Eva Villalba, executive director of Coalition Priorité Cancer. She fears that, as in previous waves, many people underestimate their symptoms or have access to care too late, with the result that they will encounter a doctor with much more advanced cancer.
We are worried about all the diagnoses that are not made or are delayed, for all kinds of reasons, including because patients are so afraid of having COVID-19 that they will not see. the doctors.
Eva Villalba, Executive Director of Coalition Priorité Cancer
Already, in January 2021, the Ministry of Health and Social Services wrote in its Analysis of the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer care and services in Quebec that given that “there are approximately 60,000 new cases of cancer in Quebec each year, we can assume that only [du] 1er March 2020 to July 18, 2020, approximately 4,119 people with cancer have not been diagnosed in Quebec ”.
Last September, for the same analysis of the repercussions of the pandemic, the Department of Health and Social Services also calculated that 154,667 fewer mammograms had been performed in 2020-2021 compared to 2018-2019.
Fight for care
A resident of Longueuil says he had to fight so that his mother-in-law, in hospital for nine days and still awaiting an operation considered urgent, did not return home. “She was due out on Wednesday, but her COVID test came back positive. The hospital nevertheless wanted to return her home with my father, himself very old and with reduced mobility. We opposed it. The hospital then wanted to find a rehabilitation center to accommodate my mother-in-law. They couldn’t, and she’s still in the hospital. ”
For a young mother who also requested anonymity and who is struggling with a nasty infection following a cesarean, it was the home care that was lacking.
“I had a terrible experience with the CLSC home wound care team. There was a shortage of staff because of the reassignments, and that greatly affected the quality of care, ”she says.