WARNING : What you are going to read in these pages contains disturbing details which may disturb some readers. However, we believe that it is in the public interest to relate as faithfully as possible the horror that unfolded at CHSLD Herron.
Residents covered with excrement and hypothermia in their beds, eldest abandoned on the toilet for hours, man who had not drunk water for 10 days: testimonies on the abuse suffered at CHSLD Herron during the COVID pandemic- 19 are cold in the back.
• Read also: Report blames poor governance
• Read also: No accusation in the CHSLD Herron file
“It prevents me from sleeping this investigation,” drops Géhane Kamel, coroner and lawyer in charge of the public inquiry into the massacre of deaths at the long-term care center (CHSLD) Herron, at the start of the pandemic.
And for good reason: the hearings as part of the investigation have continued to show the nightmare experienced by the residents of this residence in the west of Montreal, when almost all the employees of the establishment had abandoned the ship, leaving residents to die alone in their rooms in the spring of 2020.
Forty-seven seniors lost their lives in inhumane conditions. However, the office of the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) has indicated that no charges will be brought against the leaders of the establishment closed in the fall of 2020.
For four days, the horror testimonies have been linked.
Horrifying
Stéphanie Larose, nurse and head of ambulatory services at the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, went to this living environment to “assess the quality of care” provided on April 3, 2020.
She is still in shock. As soon as she arrived, she saw patients whose dressings had not been changed for several months.
Others also saw residents whose tongues were cracked from lack of hydration and who called for water.
“A man had dried vomit in his mouth. He cried when he was given water because he could finally talk, ”said Marie-Ève Rompré, nurse and head of rental at St. Mary’s hospital center.
Abandoned
Nurse Rompré also met several people suffering from hypothermia, including a woman whom she found unconscious in her bed.
“I take his vital signs, but the phone rings … I answer and it’s her partner who starts to cry […] because he hasn’t been able to talk to someone for weeks and can’t come, ”recalls the nurse with emotion.
“I sat [la dame]. […] I told him “he’s your husband, he’s your husband”. […] She picked up the phone and said, “It’s not going very well here.” […] Then she said that she didn’t think she would survive … ”, recounted Mme Rompré, pointing out that the resident died some time later.
Hearings are scheduled to continue until September 23.
Covered with wounds
The lack of care was such at CHSLD Herron that several residents remained with unchanged dressings for many days, even weeks.
” [Un résident] had bandages after the legs that were yellowed. It had been so long since they had not been changed that the skin had grown back on the dressings, ”said Stéphanie Larose, nurse and head of ambulatory services at the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. .
For her part, Marie-Ève Rompré, nurse, also witnessed another similar case.
A resident had a wound whose dressing was also starting to be covered by her skin.
“She said ‘I’m going to stay here I’m going to die with it’,” M recalled.me Broke, sobbing.
Martine Daigneault, assistant director of the program to support the autonomy of the elderly and a nurse by training, saw the same horrors. “I noticed bandages [pas adaptés] on wounds that had oozed. Scabs on the legs of some, ”she said on Wednesday.
Abandoned on the toilet
Stéphanie Larose, nurse and head of ambulatory services at the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal.
As she walked around the rooms to help residents, she soon realized that residents were often left to their own devices for long periods of time.
” [Une résidente] said to me “it often happens that [les préposés] are going to leave me on the toilet, and then I have pain from sitting on the toilet. […] and there I throw myself on the ground because it is less hard for me to wait lying on the floor on the floor of the bathroom than to be sitting on the hard toilet which hurts my buttocks ”, related Mme The Rose.
According to the latter, this resident even told her that it had been several months since she had been allowed to take a bath, because each time there was a “lack of towels”.
In urine and feces
Many residents were found in diapers, sheets, clothes, in their beds or even in armchairs soiled for several days by urine and their excrement.
The situation was such that a smell of urine hung in the air of the residence.
“The floors are sticky. The scent … […] There was a constant scent in the establishment, ”says Brigitte Auger, director of the support program for the autonomy of the elderly.
Some residents were found with dried stool on their thighs, others even had it up to their necks because their diapers were overflowing.
No soap, no toilet paper
Nurses who came in to reinforce them found that there was no soap in the bathrooms or in the establishment.
“We did not have access to reserves, it was very difficult for everything: brown paper, toilet paper, diapers,” explains Brigitte Auger, director of the program to support the autonomy of the elderly.
A manager went to the grocery store to buy soap and paper.
Some have complained that the devices to assess the condition of patients do not work and that the blood pressure monitors [outils pour mesurer la tension artérielle] appeared to come from a pharmacy.
“Blue” from hypothermia
One of the stories that most marked nurse Marie-Ève Rompré is that of a 101-year-old man whom she found in bed, hypothermic, “with a blue face”.
“I saw some who shivered [à cause] from their fever, with blue lips, die like that all alone in the bed of sweat. It’s horrible, ”said the nurse who had set up a team of 12 nurses to come and help at the CHSLD Herron, from April 9, 2020, with a tight throat.
After seeing these situations, this manager did not hesitate to call and send emails to doctors asking them for help so that they could perform medical procedures for end-of-life care.
Not drunk for 10 days
One of the most striking observations reported by most of the witnesses of the first four days of hearing was to see how a large part of the residents of CHSLD Herron were completely dehydrated and malnourished.
According to Marie-Ève Rompré, a nurse for more than 10 years, some patients she met had not drunk for 10 days.
“Except to take their medication,” she explains.
Several residents were also obliged to be put in solutes to be rehydrated.
Several of the witnesses also noticed that the residents’ meal trays had not been touched and were cold.
What they said
“I am outraged. […] As a society, we have abandoned them. “
– Géhane Kamel, coroner and lawyer.
“I’ve seen residents drink two or three glasses of water and kiss our hands over the gloves to thank us. “
– Martine Daigneault, Deputy Director of the Support Program for the Autonomy of Seniors at the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal.
“There are rooms where the light was closed, there are people who are lying down, bedridden, with a blanket over their heads. I’m not a practicing Christian, but in my head I make my sign of the cross to make sure … I want to find every room with a living person. “
– Brigitte Auger, director of the support program for the autonomy of the elderly at the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal.
“We did things that we never do in a CHSLD. We gave fluids intravenously, we gave all kinds of antibiotics, we turned this place into a mini-hospital. “
– Julia Chalbot, geriatrician.
SEE ALSO
www.journaldemontreal.com