Flowers in front of this retirement home where 31 residents succumbed to the epidemic, near Montreal. – ERIC THOMAS / AFP
Caregivers who desert, residents neither fed nor changed, an ex-delinquent boss … and 31 dead in a few weeks: revelations about a retirement home near Montreal, decimated by the
coronavirus, caused a real electric shock in Canada. This private establishment, the Herron Residence in Dorval, has become in a few days the painful symbol of the massacre that has hit the country’s seniors’ residences. As in many European countries, there are half of the deaths linked to
Covid-19.
“Terrible”, moved the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, pointing to “gross negligence” and ordering several investigations – including one by the criminal police – after the revelations of the Montreal Gazette. According to the English-language newspaper, officials of the health authorities called to the rescue in this establishment where a large part of the staff had deserted, for fear of contracting Covid-19, had discovered a scene of desolation: patients who had not been fed for several days, diapers overflowing with excrement, sick people lying on the ground after a fall. And two elders found dead in their beds.
” Nausea “
“It really made me sick because I suddenly had a lot of questions: what could we have done differently? Why did nobody tell us anything? “Moira Davis laments after the death of her father Stanley Pinnell at the Herron Center on April 8. At the Herron residence, at least five of the 31 deaths have been directly attributed to the virus, the rest are being analyzed. This case is not “close to being finished,” says Moira Davis. Especially since “the world’s spotlight is on Herron, the perfect example of what’s wrong with our elderly health care,” she said.
Class action proceedings have been brought, on behalf of the 130 residents, against the Herron Center, claiming a total of more than 5 million Canadian dollars (3.4 million euros) for “inhuman and degrading treatment”. The daily The Press has also since revealed that the chairman of the group that owns the center, Samir Chowiera, had spent time in prison for drug trafficking and fraud.
A shortage of 2,000 people
This massacre is not a surprise for experts: the budget devoted to long-term care is the “poor relation” of the health system in Canada, where there is no specific funding unlike in France or Germany. “We have neglected the elderly sector for a very long time,” says Réjean Hébert, former Quebec health minister, citing “labor difficulties” linked to “jobs that are poorly paid”.
Faced with outcry, the Premier of Quebec called on doctors to “come and do the work of nurses” in residential and long-term care centers, the Quebec equivalent of nursing homes. He estimates that about 2,000 health care workers are missing. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Friday the dispatch of 125 members of the Armed Forces to help the personnel of the province’s CHSLDs. Quebec had 688 coronavirus deaths on Friday evening, half the national toll of 1,354 deaths.
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