Quebec coroner: delay in getting to hospital likely factor in Atikamekw baby’s death
Posted November 8, 2022 1:46 pm.
Last Updated November 8, 2022 5:40 pm.
A Quebec coroner is calling on the province to reduce the time it takes to get remote patients to hospital after a seven-month-old baby from a northern First Nations community died after waiting for care.
Niteiyah Chilton died in April of bacterial meningitis after it took more than five and a half hours to bring her to the nearest hospital by ambulance, and more than eight and a half hours to get her to a specialized pediatric centre in Montreal.
Coroner Gehane Kamel wrote in her report that the delay in accessing care “very likely” affected the child’s chances of survival.
“It seems very likely that the delays of this significance had an impact on the survival of the infant and warrant a reflection on ways to reduce them and prevent this from happening again,” she wrote in a report dated Oct. 21.
A nurse from the Atikamekw community of Manawan, about 250 kilometres north of Montreal, called 911 on the night of April 2 after the baby was suffering from convulsions and breathing problems.
The local ambulance service was already overwhelmed, which forced the family to wait more than an hour and 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive from another community.
The child arrived at the regional hospital at 2:30 a.m. Soon after, doctors decided to transfer her to Montreal’s Sainte-Justine hospital, which led to another 30-minute wait for an ambulance. She only arrived in Montreal at 5:30 a.m., more than eight and a half hours after the 911 call. By then, her prognosis was grim.
She was declared dead on April 4.
The cause of death was bacterial meningitis, “following emergency treatment received too late,” Kamel concluded in her report. The death was deemed accidental.
Kamel highlighted staffing shortages and scheduling challenges in the ambulance sector, particularly in remote areas, which “unfortunately contributed to the lack of services provided to the population of Manawan.”
MORE: Quebec coroner investigating death of Atikamekw baby who waited 3 hours for ambulance
Given the lack of resources in distant communities, she urged the province to “reflect on solutions that fall outside the established framework.”
That could include, she wrote, a team of health professionals who provide pre-hospital care in First Nations communities. She said there also needs to be a faster way of getting critically ill patients to hospital.
While airplane transport is available in some communities, helicopters would be “more versatile” for patients in remote areas, she said.
Kamel noted that the province has already promised a “vast project” to transform its pre-hospital services, including the possibility of helicopter transport, following another coroner’s report last year. She urged the province to speed up the process as much as possible in order to avoid more deaths.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2022.
