'A breakdown of service': With ER partially closed, Senneterre man dies after two-hour delay to receive urgent care

A family is mourning after their 65-year-old father was transferred to two different hospitals because the ER in his city was closed overnight due to a lack of staff.

Miguel Genest said his father, Richard Genest, complained of stomach pains that started out mild and became more painful as the day went on. Believing he was dealing with a kidney stone, he didn't pay too much attention to it because he had already been through it.

But during the night, the pain became unbearable and his father had to call the ambulance since he could not go to the emergency room in Senneterre. The ER has been closed from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. since Oct. 18 as part of the "reorganization" announced by the Centre intégré de santé et des services sociaux de l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue (CISSS-AT) and supported by Health Minister Christian Dubé.

At the time of Genest's 911 call, the only ambulance serving Senneterre was already on its way to Val-d'Or. It was therefore an ambulance from Barraute, about 30 kilometers away, that had to come and get the 65-year-old man who was in bad shape.

According to the account the man's son shared with The Canadian Press, the man had to wait an hour-and-a-half before seeing the paramedics arrive. The son then went to his father's bedside to wait with him for emergency services.