Death outside Trois-Rivières, Que., hospital 'unacceptable': Health Ministry

Quebec's Health Ministry says the triage situation at a regional university hospital in Trois-Rivières, where a man over the age of 85 died in an ambulance Wednesday while awaiting treatment, is "unacceptable."

After waiting more than two hours outside the emergency room of the Centre hospitalier affilié universitaire régional (CHAUR), the man went into cardiac arrest and could not be revived.

"A situation like this is unacceptable and must not happen again," said the Health Ministry in a statement. "Patients must be seen more quickly and treated via other resources as much as possible."

Marianne Lemay, director of professional services for the regional health authority, the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Québec (CIUSSS-MCQ), told CBC the emergency room was stretched well beyond capacity.

"In COVID times, we have 45 beds that are available at the ER and we had 67 occupied with over 30 patients who were waiting to be hospitalized," she said. "So you can understand that this creates quite a bit of pressure."

Lemay said no one who works at the hospital wants to see a patient die in such a setting.  Paramedics have been denouncing the wait times for patient transfers in the Mauricie region since last week.

On Wednesday, when the elderly man was brought to the CHAUR, there were already five or six other ambulances waiting in the hospital garage.

The man was triaged by a nurse, who deemed him not to be a priority. He was made to wait in the emergency vehicle. Paramedics alerted the hospital and did everything they could to revive him when he went into cardiac arrest but he died inside the ambulance.

Patients' rights group wants answers

"When someone gets abandoned like that in a hospital garage, it's a pretty sad portrayal of the health network," said Paul Brunet, a patients' rights advocate and president of the Conseil pour la protection des malades (CPM).

Brunet says the regional health authority owes the family and the public an explanation.

"Was there good communication with the paramedics and the emergency staff?" he said in an interview with Radio-Canada. "There are several questions that need to be answered but we feel this is a death that probably could have been avoided."

The CIUSSS-MCQ says it's conducting an internal investigation and has asked the coroner to help it look into it. Health Minister Christian Dubé's office said it will be "digging deeper" to get to the bottom of what happened.