The body of a man was left on a stretcher for regarding two and a half hours on Saturday at the Honoré-Mercier hospital in Saint-Hyacinthe, Montérégie.
The body was left in the garage of the hospital where the ambulances arrive while it was very hot there.
“It’s a bit as if we had decided to put this stretcher with a corpse in it in the entrance hall of the hospital. It’s the equivalent of the hospital entrance hall for patients arriving by ambulance,” explains David Gagnon, vice-president of the Brotherhood of Quebec Prehospital Workers (FTPQ-SCFP).
When a patient dies in the ambulance while being transported or an ambulance is called to collect the body of a deceased person from home, the remains are left in the garage by the paramedics.
It is then up to the hospital to take charge of the body and move it.
This time, at the Honoré-Mercier hospital, the paramedics had to complain so that the body was finally taken care of by the hospital and moved.
Courtesy picture
“Hospital workers either, that’s not the way they should like to dispose of a corpse. They must feel that this is not the right thing to do. It is also clear, we think of the family, we think of the paramedics for whom it is a working environment. This is not the right place, we do not understand why it is always repeated, ”laments Mr. Gagnon.
According to the union, since 2019, bodies have been left in the garage this way at least ten times.
The paramedics called out the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, on Twitter to prevent such a situation from happening once more.
The office of the Minister of Health describes this situation as “untenable”.
“We are going to check immediately with the CISSS. We understand that there is a serious lack of manpower in the network, but this kind of situation should not happen. It is a question of respect for the deceased and his family, ”reacts the firm in an email sent to TVA Nouvelles.
The management of the establishment maintains, in an email, that it was “an exceptional situation when an ambulance arrived with a patient who had been deceased for several hours”.
“The ER doctor was busy seeing patients awaiting treatment and we had to wait for coroner’s clearance to move the patient to the morgue. In addition, the room for deceased patients was already occupied. The paramedics therefore had to leave the victim’s body in the sheltered garage, ”explains the hospital management.
“Our teams are concerned and caring towards our users and our partners. We are putting everything in place to prevent such a situation from happening once more”, can we also read in the email.
