Shocking death of Duceppe’s mother raises questions
Patients-rights advocate wonders whether lack of staff played a role
The first thing Paul Brunet thought of when he heard the news about Gilles Duceppe’s mother freezing to death outside her retirement home was his own mother, quickly followed by a wave of sympathy for the former Bloc Québécois leader.
But as a longtime patients-rights advocate, he couldn’t help but then start wondering exactly what went wrong at the seniors’ residence on Sunday.
“It’s so horrific, and of course, it’s exceptional. But how can you forget or not account for the people you are mandated to take care of ?” Brunet asked on Tuesday. “I don’t know.”
Hélène Rowley Hotte, 93, left her east-end Montreal apartment just after 4 a.m. on Sunday after a fire alarm went off. She was found dead in the snow shortly before noon. A coroner is investigating the circumstances surrounding her death.
According to the owners of the retirement home, the Lux Gouverneur, security camera footage showed that Rowley Hotte, wearing winter clothes, fainted after going outside. Initial reports had said the doors locked behind her, preventing her from getting back inside.
Montreal police said it appears Rowley Hotte, who had hearing problems, didn’t hear an audio notification advising residents not to go outside. The temperature was about -20 C Sunday morning, with a wind chill of about -30.
Using the “perhaps too simple” example of how a tour guide counts people when they get on and off a sightseeing bus, Brunet, head of the Conseil pour la protection des malades, wonders why no one counted the residents following the alarm.
He also fears the case shares a “common denominator” with others: did a lack of staff play a role?
“To take care of people, you need people,” he said. “Cameras and video footage will not help you if there’s no one there to take action.”
At a news conference Monday, Marguerite Blais, Quebec’s minister responsible for seniors, said the residence has six people on duty at night, whereas only two are required. It houses 660 people in 440 units.
Blais also noted the residence has an evacuation plan, but said it’s not clear if anyone did a head count after the alarm was over.
Though he understands the search for answers, to Yves Desjardins, a spokesperson for the Quebec seniors’ housing group, the question of whether a head count was performed could be misplaced.
He said residences for autonomous seniors, like the one in question, are “almost like living in condos.”
“People are free to come and go; you can’t control that,” he said. “There’s no count of who is present and who isn’t, and I think it’s important to keep that freedom. It’s not because people are seniors that you need to control them.”
Desjardins said he hopes the coroner’s report will “shed light on the entirety of what happened” and that seniors’ residences across the province will make adjustments if needed.
The Quebec coroner’s office has investigated similar cases — and delivered recommendations to the residences involved — in recent years.
In January 2016, a 92-year-old man died of hypothermia after wandering off from a private residence for seniors in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The same year, an 88-year-old man died in Quebec’s Bas-Saint-Laurent region after leaving his residence in the middle of a December night.
In Rowley Hotte’s case, the “question on everyone’s mind,” said Claude Ménard, president of the Regroupement provincial des comités des usagers, is whether the fire-alarm protocol in place was followed.
Lux Gouverneur’s provincial certificate of compliance was renewed last year, meaning it did have an appropriate protocol in place.
Per Quebec laws, that would include an up-to-date fire safety plan, a list of residents to make sure each one exits the building safely, and a list of what each staff member is responsible for, on each shift, if there’s an evacuation.
“The residence was certified,” Ménard said, “but with all the turnover we see with personnel
To take care of people, you need people. Cameras and video footage will not help you if there’s no one there to take action.
inside private residences or CHSLDs, is the staff working there today aware of the protocol?”
On average, it takes roughly a year for a Quebec coroner to finish their report. Brunet hopes whatever comes of it can lead to positive changes.
“Most of the time, (these cases) are the result of multiple simple, minor events that create a cascade and, in the end, cause a tragedy,” he said. “There are things that aren’t taken care of and eventually it causes a tragic event.
“The establishment says this is an exceptional case, and we all understand that. We all understand they do everything they can,” he said. “But is that sufficient?”