The day after the Enquête report on persistent shortcomings in ambulance services , the parents of Hugo St-Onge, who died in 2017 while waiting for help, are not reassured by the statement from the Quebec government. The Minister of Health's promises actually leave them wanting more.
In a statement sent by email to Radio-Canada, the office of the Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, affirms that a plan for x27;action will be tabled shortly where we will see a set of concrete and quantified measures which will indicate how we are going to achieve the objectives.
Or, Surveyrevealed Thursday that the CAQ government had in hand, since 2021, an action plan that it had itself commissioned in 2019 from Michel C. Doré, an ambulance driver and nurse by training, and a renowned senior civil servant.
In an interview on the show It's even better in the afternoon, Bruno St-Onge and Johanne Lapointe told host Guillaume Dumas that they were disturbed and shocked to learn, while watching the report, that the action plan developed to reform the ambulance system, in the wake of the death of their son, was tableted.
Consultations have been carried out for 30 years, reports have been written, made public and from the moment […] they are filed, they are shelved, Ms. Lapointe is indignant. We start another series of consultations, we write a report, same thing.
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Johanne Lapointe and Bruno St-Onge, parents of paramedic Hugo St-Onge who died while waiting for the ambulance in 2017
Himself an ambulance driver, their son, Hugo St-Onge, died while waiting for the ambulance in Lévis in December 2017. Despite a damning coroner's report concluding that his death was possibly avoidable and containing a series of recommendations, nothing was done. has really changed almost six years later. has three or four reports and in their title they all have “urgency to act”. It's been 30 years!
A quote from Johanne Lapointe, mother of Hugo
In the message it sent to us, the cabinet adds: We are the first government to implement major changes in the pre-hospital system. He does not specify, however, the measures deployed.
This statement from Christian Dubé's office does not reassure Hugo's father, Bruno St-Onge .
This must translate into a service to the population, […] more rapid action to intervene in emergency situations. Will his plan, which we don't yet know, meet this need?, he wonders.
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Hugo St-Onge, in the lens of his lover, in October 2017.
It's while watching the report of Investigationthat he says he realized the extent of the problem. The provincial dimension of the problem and the systemic dimension. There are issues of financing, accountability and performance management. We don't know all of these indicators. We don't understand how it works.
We don't put [citizens who need help] at the heart of our thinking, our interventions. That’s what hurts.
A quote from Bruno St-Onge, father of Hugo
Johanne Lapointe would like to add: We must always remember that it It was the Ministry that created this system. He let this system set up by not intervening, [a system] that we allowed to progress.
The parents of a paramedic who died unjustly testify. SHOW HERE FIRST. It's even better in the afternoon.
Parents of paramedic who died unjustly testify
SHOW HERE FIRSTIt's even better in the afternoon
Listen to the audio (Parents of a paramedic who died unjustly testify. 18 minutes 53 seconds)
We have a clear vision for the pre-hospital sector and for the first time in several decades, we have the political will to do what is necessary to improve access for Quebecers, assures the minister's office.
Except that the in-depth reform, promised by the CAQ in 2019, no longer holds. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, admitted last spring that this was not his priority.
However, Mr. Dubé's office said, in 2020, that the government could not solve the problems piecemeal and that it was working on a reform of pre-hospital emergency services.
Could one day we consider [a prehospital reform]? […] Let's say when we are going to have finished Bill 15. […] Not closed to that at all, launched Minister Dubé, questioned by PQ MP Joël Arseneau on the occasion of the #x27;study of credits.
He also said that he would have liked to go further in the pre-hospital field, during the first hearings on Bill 15 aimed at making the health system more efficient. We had to make choices because we already had 1000 articles of law.
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Christian Dubé, Minister of Health of Quebec, during special consultations on Bill 15 intended to reform the health system. (Archive photo)
The minister's office also wishes to point out that it has obtained major gains that no other government has managed to achieve thanks to its agreement concluded last summer with the ambulance companies which comes into force this Sunday.
We have set several conditions, such as now having access to the complete financial statements of all companies. We have also included substantial financial penalties for companies that do not deliver every hour under their contract. This is a first.
However, as revealed to EnquêteThursday, verification mechanisms already existed in the contracts previous, but the Ministry did not follow up regularly and did not apply penalties to companies.
Johanne Lapointe says she learned a lot of things from the report. I thought we'd done a lot of digging, but I realized I wasn't quite up to speed.
She and Hugo's father, Bruno St-Onge, intend to continue the quest for their son who died of what he himself denounced as an ambulance driver.
We must continue to stand up, continue to demand better services. It is aimed at decision-makers, the government, the Minister of Health, then the minister responsible for the region, says Johanne Lapointe.
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Hugo St-Onge and his lover, Emmanuelle Auger.
Bruno St-Onge wants to ensure that this type of situation does not happen again. This is our deepest desire. It's about ensuring that we take action to ensure that another family does not find themselves in this situation.
In the minister's office, we say we are empathetic to what Mr. St-Onge's family is experiencing, adding this: In Lévis, we have acted by adding 184 hours of ambulance services per week since 2018. This is the equivalent of one more ambulance in 2018, and another 16 hours of service in 2020.
Johanne Lapointe would like to correct: We leave hear that according to the coroner's recommendation, the ambulance was added. This is not true. She asks for an ambulance in addition to the one in 2018.
This addition to which the CAQ refers was announced in March 2018 by the Liberal government of the time, a few months after the death of Hugo St-Onge, as part of a much broader announcement affecting several other cities. These additions of services were already planned before the sad events.
Finally, as for the 16 hours of services added in Lévis in 2020 which are mentioned by the cabinet of the Minister, this is a temporary addition which must be renewed each year.
Teilor Stone has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining Thesaxon , Teilor Stone worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella. To get in touch, contact me through my teilor@nizhtimes.com 1-800-268-7116
