A 'life or death' question, put by phone to seniors on Quebec's Lower North Shore
Health authority says the calls about whether they would want a medevac were launched after a miscommunication
Hannah Bateman says her grandmother, a 71-year-old resident of La Tabatière, on the province's Lower North Shore, was shaken and confused by a call from a community nurse this week.
Joan Bateman was asked whether she would like to be transferred out of the region for treatment if she developed serious complications from COVID-19.
Residents of Mutton Bay, Tête-à-la-Baleine, Harrington Harbour, Chevery and Kegaska reported getting similar phone calls from nurses, who were acting on a directive issued by the regional health authority, the CISSS de la Côte-Nord.
"At first, my grandmother was very conflicted about this, because she didn't know how to answer," Bateman told Quebec AM.
"This could be a life or death situation, and she was being faced with it by a shocking phone call, not expecting it at all."
If there is an outbreak of COVID-19 on the Lower North Shore, there are not enough health care resources in the region to deal with it, and anyone who requires hospitalization will have to be transferred by medevac to a designated treatment centre outside the region.
There is neither a stationed physician nor a respiratory therapist to treat COVID-19 patients in La Tabatière where Bateman's grandmother lives, she said.
Pascal Paradis, a spokesperson for CISSS, said the organization was acting under guidelines set out by the province's federation of general practitioners, known as the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ).
But officials with the FMOQ stated they are in no way involved with the calls, and that they do not have the authority to issue directives to health-care workers.
Dyane Benoit, interim director general of the CISSS, has since said it was a miscommunication and that the calls were made with good intentions.
Representatives of the organization have since stopped making the calls to seniors.
Still, Randy Jones, the prefect for the Golfe du St-Laurent administrative region, said he was shocked when he heard about the phone calls, and feels the CISSS acted carelessly toward the aging population in the region.
"The way it was done was so inhumane, as far as I'm concerned," he said.
"To just get a phone call out of the blue when you don't understand everything, when you're scared of what's happening with regards to this pandemic ... just imagine being alone and getting that call."
Jones said people in the communities should have been told about the CISSS' plans ahead of time so family members could discuss possible treatment options with their loved ones.
"It was not the proper way, it put an unbelievable stress on our seniors," he said.
Bateman — a respiratory technology student at Vanier College in Montreal — told her grandmother it is her right to have access to a physician and to a facility capable of caring for her.
"When a situation like this arises, and our elderly, the ones who need access to hospitals and health-care workers the most, they're being asked if they want to deny that right," she said.
She said because communities on the Lower North Shore are not connected to each other or the rest of the province by road, there are always concerns for lack of resources.
Her grandmother was hesitant to say yes to a medevac to a hospital, because she felt she may be taking someone else's place on the flight.
"It seems like that's what it always comes down to, is the fact we're not connected to the rest of the province," she said. "It's a constant struggle."
As of Friday, there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19 on the Lower North Shore.
