Quebec’s minister for the elderly said at a forensic inquest on Friday that she was confident at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that long-term care homes knew how to handle outbreaks.
Marguerite Blais testified that she learned in mid-March 2020 that older people were at higher risk than the general population for severe illness from COVID-19, but said she believed the long-term care network had strong disease control practices. infections.
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“(Long-term care homes) are notorious for handling outbreaks,” Blais told coroner Gehane Kamel, who is examining deaths of elderly and vulnerable people in seven residential settings during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kamel’s research also investigates the government’s response to the outbreaks.
“It is not the first time there have been outbreaks in (households) and it will not be the last,” the minister said.
Blais said no one expected the virus to hit nursing homes as hard as they did. Nearly 4,000 people died in the homes, known in Quebec as CHSLDs, between March and June 2020, accounting for nearly 70 percent of deaths reported in the province during the first wave.
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“We thought it would affect hospitals,” Blais said.
On Friday, Kamel expressed shock at Blais’ statement that the high risk of COVID-19 for the elderly was first discussed in a meeting on March 9, 2020, noting that previous witnesses, including the former health minister of the province and public health director, had said they had known about the risks since January.
“You understand my astonishment,” said Kamel. “There are testimonies that have said the complete opposite of what you are saying this morning.”
Blais said he joined the government’s pandemic crisis group in mid-March, several days after the March 9 meeting.
Kamel noted that Blais told a journalist in September 2020 that she had not felt heard during those meetings, but the minister retracted her statements on Friday. She told Kamel that the interview had taken place during a moment of “extreme emotion” when she was not objective, adding that the government would not have invested as much in long-term care if it had not been listening.
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Blais was later asked by an attorney representing the families of six victims what concerns he had expressed to the crisis group. She did not give an example.
Blais opened his long-awaited testimony by expressing his condolences to the families of the deceased, adding that he felt it was his responsibility to participate in the investigation.
“People are in mourning; Me too,” he said.
She was originally scheduled to speak in November, but said Friday that she was suffering from professional burnout at the time and was too emotional to testify.
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