Rise in accidents, incidents while receiving healthcare in Quebec: report

A recent report from Quebec’s Health and Social Services Ministry saw a 13 per cent rise in incidents and an 8.4 per cent increase in accidents between April 2023 and March 2024–totaling over 500,000. Half of them were in long-term care homes and a third in hospitals.

Falls and near-falls accounted for the highest share at 41 per cent, followed by medication errors at 23 per cent and other types of events like runaways, disappearances and respiratory obstruction at 18 per cent. People aged 75 and older were disproportionately affected, accounting for nearly 60 percent of reports.

The vast majority–99.7 per cent–of cases resulted in no lasting harm, but 774 led to serious consequences and 679 were linked to fatalities. 

READ MORE: Increase in the number of accidents occurring during the provision of healthcare in Quebec

“When you grow older, as in my case, sometimes you have a risk of falling and that needs to be better managed, better integrated in your work, and make more rounds,” said said Paul Brunet, chair of the Council for the Protection of Patients. “We need to have a look at our patients, what’s happening in their room and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be the case and when they fall, sometimes they hurt themselves, sometimes they even die from the fall.”

Brunet, who holds a master’s degree in civil service accountability, believes that the top brass at Sante Quebec needs to be held responsible for lowering the figures. 

“How about lowering these figures from 5 per cent for next year? You’re the CEO? That’s one of your goals,” said Brunet, “but there’s no goals, there’s only [an action plan] so we need to transform… nothing is moving because nobody seems to be caring or nobody seems to be accountable for those figures.”

Natalie Stake-Doucet is an assistant professor at the Universite de Montreal and previously worked in long-term care centres for years.

“It’s really political decisions that have created the situation that we’re in right now,” said Stake-Doucet.

She says the problem is exacerbated by a lack of decent working conditions–like forced overtime and a high rate of workplace-related injuries. She recalls her experience during the pandemic as “traumatic.”

“I still have nightmares about it and that’s one of the reasons also a lot of people left long-term care homes, we had no psychological support,” said Stake-Doucet. “I had one shift where 10 people died on the same day and they all died the same… they died from Covid-19.”

“We never had any mental health support and we came out of that profoundly damaged,” she said.

Another major factor affecting working conditions are patient-to-caregiver ratios. At one point she was the only nurse responsible for 178 patients.

“If you don’t have a pilot and a copilot, the plane does not take off and yet in healthcare, where people’s lives are at risk as well, people’s wellbeing, psychological, physical wellbeing are also at risk, we pay very little attention to the actual staffing there.”

-With files from the Canadian Press