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The Quebec coroner’s office is investigating a death in the emergency room of Anna-Laberge Hospital in Châteauguay last Wednesday — the third within three months in the ER of the South Shore hospital.
Coroner Marie-Pierre Charland has been assigned to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a 41-year-old man on the afternoon of Feb. 28 as well as its probable causes, coroner’s office spokesperson Jake Lamotta Granato said on Monday.
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If she considers it appropriate, Charland could make recommendations intended to prevent other deaths in similar circumstances, he said.
According to media reports citing Gaétan Dutil, president of the paramedics’ union for the Montérégie region, the man had complained of chest pain and waited for 45 minutes for an ambulance after a call was placed at 1:18 p.m. His case was categorized Priority 3, which meant an ambulance was assigned immediately but because the case was classed as “non-urgent,” ambulances were redirected to cases considered more urgent before the man was picked up at 2:04 p.m.
Two deaths at Anna-Laberge in late November are already the subject of investigations by the Quebec coroner’s office and the local health authority, the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de la Montérégie-Ouest.
The deaths occurred during what the health authority described in an email as a period of high traffic and “very high” wait times in its institutions; both patients died without being seen by a doctor. At the time, a government website listed an average waiting room stay of 11 hours and 12 minutes at Anna-Laberge, with stretcher occupancy rate at 175 per cent of capacity.
As of Monday, average stretcher occupancy rate at the South Shore hospital was 194 per cent of capacity, according to Index Santé.
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