Peter Black

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Peterblack@qctonline.com

On the eve of the Oct. 2 Jean-Talon election, people involved in managing Saint Brigid’s Home were calling on whoever ends up as the next MNA for the riding to take action on frozen plans to build a new residence.

The state of the bilingual seniors’ residence on Chemin Saint-Louis made province-wide news with a Radio-Canada report on Sept. 28 that put the spotlight on substandard conditions at the home that have persisted for years.

As reported previously in the QCT, the basic reason for the inappropriate conditions at Saint Brigid’s has been the gradual transition of the clientele from largely independent seniors to residents needing long-term care. In short, the residence, which was designed and built in the 1970s, was never conceived for the level of “heavy” care it currently tries to provide.

The Radio-Canada report refers to a recent analysis by the Centre intégré universitaire en santé et services sociaux (CIUSSS) de la Capitale-Nationale, which gave the institution the lowest possible ranking for care homes under its jurisdiction.

Bryan O’Gallagher, head of the Jeffery Hale Hospital–Saint Brigid’s Home board of governors, said in the report, “We are talking about an extremely narrow corridor which prevents two wheelchairs from passing at the same time; we are talking about 43 people for a single bathroom [for body care] which is unusual.”

CIUSSS spokesperson Melanie Otis said, “Its significant functional obsolescence places it among the priority CHSLDs [long-term care homes] in terms of infrastructure at the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, and it is in this context that it is one of the files which were transmitted to the MSSS [ministry of health and social services] for possible registration in the PQI [Quebec infrastructure plan].”

As the QCT reported in February, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government put plans for a new Saint Brigid’s facility on hold. Joëlle Boutin, the CAQ MNA whose resignation prompted the byelection, said at the time, “In the short term [for 2023] it is true that the Saint Brigid’s project is delayed, due to inflation and construction prices. This has put tremendous pressure on current projects already approved in the Plan québécois des infrastructures (PQI) as construction prices have skyrocketed.”

Richard Walling, executive director of Jeffery Hale Community Partners, said in February that being on the PQI list represents “sort of an initial commitment of the government to say eventually we’re going to do the project, and it also liberates some money up front to start doing the background work in terms of looking at the possibilities, for example – the land that would be required, the size of the footprint, all the stuff that you need to do even before you go to tenders and launch the project.”

Walling said during the election campaign Saint Brigid’s officials “have met with the CAQ candidate, the Conservative candidate, the Liberal candidate and the PQ candidate.”

Liberal candidate Élise Avard Bernier raised the issue of the condition of Saint Brigid’s at the all-candidates debate Radio-Canada hosted during the campaign.

CAQ candidate Marie-Anik Shoiry, in a statement to the QCT, blamed the previous Liberal government for the state of Saint Brigid’s and other such facilities. “We inherited 15 Liberal years of underinvestment in our living environments for seniors. We have to catch up today.”

Shoiry said, “Our seniors deserve living environments on a human scale and adapted to their needs. I visited the CHSLD Saint Brigid’s with Minister [for seniors] Sonia Bélanger in recent weeks. I was able to see for myself the dilapidation of the building. If I am elected as MNA for Jean-Talon, rest assured that I will work in collaboration with the government to move the reconstruction project forward.”

In a follow-up CBC report, Bélanger said the government is “currently evaluating the state of CHSLDs in the province and 19 are set to be refurbished.”

Refurbishing Saint Brigid’s, however, is not an option, according to Walling.

The pandemic, he said, “just really highlighted the importance of essentially getting a much more modern facility. Even if we try and renovate Saint Brigid’s, it can only be brought up to about 60 per cent of the norms of what a new CHSLD should be, because of the architecture of the building.”
Kerry Ann King, president of the home’s residents committee, said in the CBC story, “The facility needs to be rebuilt to allow residents to stay as healthy as possible and have a safe and homey environment. But I must say that the community and the staff [and] the management work very hard to make Saint Brigid’s Home a really lovely place to be.”

Saint Brigid’s Home is the only residential and long-term care centre in the Quebec City region offering bilingual services, with 142 beds in private rooms as well as an 11-bed unit for residents with dementia-related behaviour.