Patients' rights advocate filed criminal complaint over neglect of Quebec seniors in pandemic's 1st wave
CBC
A prominent advocate for patients' rights has filed a police complaint against top Quebec government and public health officials over their handling of the pandemic's first wave in 2020.
Paul Brunet, head of the Quebec Council for the Protection of Patients, testified at the coroner's inquiry into the deaths at seniors homes on Thursday that he filed a complaint with Quebec provincial police alleging criminal negligence by Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda and the former health minister, Danielle McCann.
Brunet, whose voice broke at times during his testimony, said Arruda and McCann failed to protect seniors living in residences.
"Thousands of deaths could have been avoided. These people were ignored, neglected, sacrificed," Brunet testified.
Brunet noted the World Health Organization first declared a global state of emergency on Jan. 30, 2020. He said that by February, there were clear warning signs that seniors were more vulnerable to COVID-19.
He said Arruda and McCann underestimated the risk.
Brunet said the province should have introduced mass testing of seniors in long-term care residences and independent living facilities in March 2020 or earlier. He says that didn't happen until May 2020, after hundreds had already died.
He said the government failed to stockpile enough personal protective equipment for seniors' residences and made a serious error in banning visits from family members who were essential caregivers.
"Everything was in place for the massacre that followed," he said.
"There was useless, horrible and, in my opinion, criminal suffering in CHSLDs," he testified.
Brunet said he filed a complaint with the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) in September 2021 and that investigators are currently studying it.
Provincial police confirmed Thursday that they received the complaint and were analyzing it.
Brunet said he promised the SQ he wouldn't speak about the complaint publicly unless he was testifying under oath, which is why he revealed it today — and he noted the complaint was filed by him personally and not by the Council for Patients' Rights.
In an interview with Radio-Canada after his appearance Thursday, Brunet said it was while preparing for his testimony at the coroner's inquiry that he started to believe that what happened in seniors residences during the first wave was criminal.
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