When a doctor requests a psychiatric evaluation for one of his patients, the waiting list is now more than two years in Laval, psychiatrist Simon Roussel told coroner Géhane Kamel on Thursday.
The doctor who makes such a request “is better to be patient,” added the psychiatrist, who practices at the CISSS de Laval.
In 2013, the wait was three months, he said, but in 2019 the situation began to deteriorate. Then there was a wave of resignations, he explained.
Dr. Roussel testifies at the coroner’s inquest into a young schizophrenic man who randomly shot three people in 2022 in Montreal and Laval. These three men were shot and killed in less than 48 hours, on August 2 and 3, 2022. The shooter, Abdulla Shaikh, was shot dead the next day by the police during an intervention by the tactical group of the City Police Department from Montreal in a room of the motel where he was hiding.
Aged 26 when he died, Shaikh had been diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years earlier. He had spent time in psychiatry. Found not criminally responsible for an offense with which he had been accused, he was released from the psychiatric hospital in April 2021 by the Mental Disorders Review Commission, even though it considered that he still presented “a significant risk to public safety” due to his mental state.
This decision was confirmed by the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec in April 2022, just a few months before the triple homicide. He was followed in psychiatry on an outpatient basis.
This is why Coroner Kamel is examining, with the help of witnesses, including psychiatrists and officials from the CISSS de Laval, the provision of psychiatric care in this region.
On Wednesday, she was informed by witnesses of the serious shortage of psychiatrists in Laval which has persisted for several years, which has an impact, according to them, on the safety and quality of patient care.
On Thursday, Dr. Roussel also reported another problem: “33 codes” have multiplied. A code 33 means the hospital is full and beds need to be freed, which puts enormous pressure on discharging patients, he explained.
In Laval, such “codes 33” are announced on the intercom “every week,” said the doctor who claims not to have experienced this before.
In short, this means that patients are being discharged from the hospital while they are still ill. They must be followed in an outpatient clinic, which must now monitor much heavier cases, he lamented.
With only 14 psychiatrists for the population of Laval, “we are trying to survive”.
“You “patch” to the emergency” summarized the coroner.
However, two psychiatrist recruits arrived in Laval in July and two others should join the team in October, he stressed.
Other psychiatric doctors are due to testify Thursday afternoon.
Further details will follow.