Woman, 91, dies on balcony after waiting 7 hours for ambulance in Montreal
Global News
Officials with Quebec's ambulance service providers are offering condolences to family members of a 91-year-old woman who died after waiting 7 hours for an ambulance to arrive.
Urgences-santé officials in Quebec are offering their condolences to the family of a 91-year-old woman who died after waiting seven hours for an ambulance to arrive in Montreal.
Thérèse Pardiac died on a balcony in agony Saturday night after falling and breaking her leg.
Unable to move, Pardiac, alongside her son and daughter-in-law, was left seated in an outdoor chair as she waited for paramedics to arrive.
According to Urgences-santé, while the senior was in pain, the 911 call was not deemed a priority — despite multiple calls from family members telling paramedics otherwise.
“Each time we evaluate and we assess the situation with the caller and those revelations made the priority of the call remained the same, not urgent at the time,” Vincent Brouillard spokesperson for Urgences-santé said.
“During that period of time we had a lot of urgent calls and those were prioritized by our ambulance service.”
Brouillard says it is no secret that the emergency service is dealing with “serious and debilitating” staffing shortages.
He says the high volume of calls and the staffing issues are to blame for the delayed response time.
