Montreal family 'let down' by report on mother's death at Lakeshore Hospital

The family of Candida Macarine, the 86-year-old woman who was found dead on the floor of a room in the ER of Montreal's Lakeshore General Hospital in February 2021, said they were "let down" by the independent investigative report released last week.

The report underlined the hospital's high mortality rate and overcrowding, sounding the alarm on the the risk of more preventable deaths. It also made 135 recommendations, but on Wednesday, two of Macarine's children — Emmanuel and Gilda — said the report does little to shed light on what happened to their mother and fails to put patients first. 

After two years of waiting for answers, the two are still waiting for an official apology for their mother's death and are asking for some accountability from hospital staff.

Two years ago, Candida Macarine died at the hospital a few hours after being admitted with respiratory distress. 

She was found dead on the floor beside her bed in one of three negative-pressure rooms in the ER used for suspected COVID-19 patients.

Nurses had warned managers several times in the weeks before Macarine's death about problems being able to see directly into those rooms, making it difficult to monitor patients there.

Getting to the bottom of what happened to his mother has taken its toll on Emmanuel Macarine, youngest of the children.

"It's draining, physically, mentally and emotionally. We should have been in the process of getting over this by now. It seems like we will never find out the truth," he said. 

Emmanuel said he was never hopeful about the independent investigation, and its findings have done nothing to find out who was responsible for his mother's death — or regain the family's trust. 

The report, he said, is more a bureaucratic review of management systems than a look at how care could be improved for patients and their loved ones. 

He also questions why his family and others who have lost loved ones there were not consulted by investigators.

"One thing is for sure, they didn't talk to us. They didn't consider our opinion or what we know. They just don't care about our suffering," he said.

"I hope from now on any investigation regarding this matter should be patient-centred, not management. We are the ones who suffer."

Standing by him, his sister Gilda, the fourth of Macarine's 11 children, shared her brother's disappointment.

"I'm so deeply frustrated," she said, dressed in mourner's black. "Until now we are still looking for who is responsible and who will be held accountable for my mom's death."

Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations, said that while some useful new information was revealed about the Macarine case, he was expecting much more detail.

The Lakeshore Hospital report has "many missing pieces," he said.

Both the hospital's health-care providers and management have eluded full transparency in the death of Candida Macarine, while many of the report's 135 recommendations are too basic to meaningfully address longstanding issues and "border on the ridiculous," said Niemi.

For the family and CRARR, the next step is to make an official complaint with the Quebec's nurses' order and the Quebec College of Physicians, with the eventual goal of taking legal action. 

CBC reached out to the Quebec Ministry of Health for comment but has not heard back at this time.