Application for class action against Vigi Mont-royal
An application for a class-action lawsuit against a CHSLD that was one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus has been filed at the Montreal courthouse.
The application was filed this week by lawyer Patrick Martin-ménard for Evangelina Morfonios, the daughter of Olga Sarlis, a 91-year-old woman who died at the Jewish General Hospital on April 28 after contracting COVID -19 at Vigi Mont-royal. The T.M.R. residence is owned by Vigi Santé Ltée, which owns 14 other residences in Quebec. According to statistics supplied by the minister of health and social services, 70 Vigi Mont-royal residents have died of COVID-19.
At least two other applications for class-action suits have been filed against other residences in Quebec: the Résidence Herron in Dorval and the CHSLD Ste-dorothée, a government-run CHSLD where 93 residents have died of the virus.
An application for a class-action lawsuit is different from a standard lawsuit in that a judge has to determine if there are grounds to justify allowing many people to take part before it proceeds.
The lawsuit seeks $1 million in exemplary damages for gross negligence for the group of residents as a whole, as well as $20,000 for each of the 223 people who lived at Vigi Mont-royal when the pandemic began, “to compensate the pain, suffering, stress and inconvenience the member encountered due to the situation prevailing at Vigi Mont-royal.” It also seeks $30,000 for each resident who was infected, $100,000 for each surviving spouse of a resident who died at the CHSLD and $30,000 for each of the heirs and successors of the deceased.
According to the government’s latest statistics, the infection rate at Vigi Mont-royal has significantly dropped to 12 per cent. But, according to the application,
“on May 8, 2020, internal data by (Vigi Mont-royal) indicated all 223 residents of Vigi Mont-royal were infected as well as a total of 145 employees.”
This week, a report by the Canadian Forces, whose members assisted staff at Vigi Mont-royal beginning on May 1, also estimated that at one point 100 per cent of the residents were infected.
The lawsuit also alleges conditions at Vigi Mont-royal were unsanitary before the pandemic.
“Over the years, the family of Ms. Sarlis noticed severe neglect in the care provided to her by (Vigi Mont-royal) and its employees and in the overall state of the facility,” Martin-ménard wrote in the application. It alleges there was “significant neglect” when it came to changing Sarlis’s diaper. It also alleges she was left in her wheelchair “daylong, spending the days in the hallway and falling asleep while crooked in her wheelchair, resulting in severe back problems.”
Similar allegations of neglect and unsanitary conditions were made in a lawsuit filed against Vigi Mont-royal in early March, just before the coronavirus spread through Quebec.
Sarlis began living there in March 2016. She suffered from dementia, “but was otherwise healthy,” according to the lawsuit.
On April 21, Morfonios was informed that her mother had contracted the virus and that she had a high temperature.
Two days later, Sarlis still had a high fever and a doctor at Vigi Mont-royal informed Morfonios that she had not been able to eat or drink for days. However, according to the lawsuit, on the same day, Vigi Mont-royal’s director of health care and co-ordinator of clinical services told Morfonios’s sister that her mother “was fine.” Sarlis was transferred to the Jewish General Hospital the same day.
None of the allegations mentioned in the application have been proved in court.
Vigi Santé Ltée has told the Montreal Gazette in the recent past that it does not comment on legal matters that are before the courts.