A category-action lawsuit can go forward towards the Quebec authorities on behalf of residents in public long-term care properties that had main COVID-19 outbreaks throughout the first yr of the pandemic, the province’s superior courtroom has determined.
Justice Donald Brisson licensed the authorized motion Monday after a lawyer in search of permission to deliver the swimsuit argued earlier than the courtroom final September.
The case’s lead plaintiff is Jean-Pierre Daubois. His 94-year-old mom Anna José Maquet died in April 2020 on the Sainte-Dorothée long-term care dwelling in Laval throughout a COVID-19 outbreak that contaminated greater than 200 residents.
Maquet choked whereas consuming water and was positioned on a respiratory misery protocol that Daubois says he believes led to her dying. The centre had employees shortages throughout that interval, the place 101 residents died.
“It’s a giant victory for the households, this primary step,” Daubois stated concerning the decide’s authorization of the category motion at a information convention on Tuesday.
“And we intend to proceed as a result of we wish (the Quebec authorities) to be accountable for what they did and didn’t do.”
The lawsuit names as defendants the Sainte-Dorothée long-term care centre, 20 regional well being authorities and the province’s lawyer normal — because the consultant of the well being minister and public well being director.
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It alleges the Quebec authorities’s failure to organize for the novel coronavirus’ arrival because it started spreading in different components of the world led to preventable deaths. Hundreds of seniors died within the province’s long-term care properties within the pandemic’s first two waves.
Daubois, for his half, stated Tuesday he’s searching for “accountability and for this to not occur once more.”
“I’m nonetheless mad as a result of it was avoidable,” Daubois stated of his mom’s dying.
The category motion consists of anybody who lived in long-term care centres — recognized in Quebec as CHSLDs — the place at the very least 25 per cent of residents had been affected by COVID-19 outbreaks between March 13, 2020, and March 20, 2021.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer Patrick Martin-Ménard estimates that features greater than 6,000 residents throughout the province and an unknown variety of relations. He stated a whole lot of individuals have reached out to him about their expertise with nursing properties throughout the pandemic.
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“It’s round 118 public CHSLDs,” Martin-Ménard stated of what number of long-term care properties are focused by the category motion.
The lawsuit is seeking to get hold of $100,000 in compensation for any resident who contracted the virus and $40,000 for any resident who didn’t get sick. This doesn’t embody further compensation for each teams’ households.
The swimsuit can also be in search of $10 million in punitive damages. It alleges that authorities choices — together with to maneuver hospital sufferers into long-term care centres — led to extra fatalities.
Greater than 5,000 individuals died in CHSLDs throughout the first yr of the pandemic — the identical interval talked about within the lawsuit.
In November 2021, a report by the province’s ombudswoman stated long-term care properties had been principally forgotten within the province’s early planning for COVID-19. Marie Rinfret stated the Quebec authorities’s technique was principally hospital-centric and uncared for the hazard posed to weak residents in CHSLDs.
Quebec’s coroner additionally discovered the federal government’s concentrate on hospitals coupled with the persistent dysfunction within the long-term care centres led to many deaths within the elder care system at the beginning of the pandemic.
World Information has reached out to Quebec’s Well being Ministry for its response to the category motion. The provincial authorities has 30 days to enchantment the choice.
— with information from World’s Tim Sargeant and The Canadian Press
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