Bourassa’s widow: was hospital at fault?
The family of Robert Bourassa is claiming that their mother, Andrée Simard, who died in November, was denied proper end‑of‑life care at St Mary’s Hospital. Simard was 90.
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Kate
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carswell 18:14 on 2023-01-20 Permalink
Sounds perfectly harrowing, not to mention inhumane. Per La Presse, Dubé is now offering the government’s apologies, as I’m sure he would be doing if the deceased and her survivors weren’t famous. /s That said, how a public embarrassment can apologize for a public embarrassment is beyond me.
JaneyB 11:19 on 2023-01-21 Permalink
I want to know what kind of follow-up the Ministry will do. They can ask and suggest all they like but clearly some large component of St-Mary’s has a view that end-of-life sedation is either a waste of resources, interferes with the death experience or both. It was, after all, a repeated omission and a position held strongly enough that they were willing to bar her daughters from entry to the building. People need to be fired here and more than one.
Kate 12:13 on 2023-01-21 Permalink
Link to the apology story.
JaneyB, St Mary’s was founded to be a Catholic hospital and it should be made clear how much its healthcare is inflected by Catholic ideas – such as that assisted dying is morally wrong, and people need to suffer before meeting their deity.
JaneyB 11:11 on 2023-01-22 Permalink
@Kate – yeah, the Catholic heritage problem was my first thought when I read this story. Listening to that CBC video’s doctor interview made me think we really need pain specialists more than palliative care doctors. Those medics could be called in to whatever department if the doctors on duty are not sure what they can/are allowed to do for pain. Maybe some form of that exists already, but it’s not robust enough if this kind of situation is happening every day all over Quebec, as the interviewee expert indicates.
carswell 17:02 on 2023-01-22 Permalink
St. Mary’s is the closest hospital to where I live and I’ve always liked its human scale, so that’s where I’ve always gone for blood tests, ophthalmology appointments and the like and kind of expected to end up if I ever need to be hospitalized. Am beginning to think it’s time to switch to the Jewish, which impressed me greatly on my three interactions with it (visits to the ER).
jeather 17:44 on 2023-01-22 Permalink
The one time I went to St Mary’s was a disaster on a bunch of levels, so I wouldn’t go back there for an emergency. It has a good maternity ward, though as I recall it’s mostly shared rooms and they are pretty aggressively breast-only.
Kate 18:16 on 2023-01-22 Permalink
I never had any problems at St Mary’s, which is convenient to me by being on the blue line. I was seen there briefly for an issue and they were fine.
Some years ago a pregnant friend decided firmly not to go back there after an initial examination, as they insisted on addressing her as Mrs. Boyfriend’s Name even though she had made it clear she was not married to the baby’s father. This may have changed in recent years – I don’t know.