The Service de police de la ville de Gatineau (SVPG) is making changes following an investigation into a 2020 decision to cancel an ambulance for a man who later died.
A Quebec coroner’s report is recommending police have better directives on when they are able to cancel ambulance services and more education on head trauma.
According to coroner Pascale Boulay’s French-language report, emergency services were called to a Gatineau apartment on Aug. 21, 2020 around 8:30 p.m. after a neighbour became concerned the man in question was in the “grip of great confusion.”
An SPVG member arrived and noted the man was confused, but an ambulance on its way to the scene was cancelled because the officer felt the man’s condition was a result of his age and not a medical emergency.
The officer instead contacted relatives of the man to come take care of him.
One family member insisted on the “need for ambulance transport,” telling the officer his aging relative was “not in his normal state” and that he was normally “independent despite his physical health problems.”
After the officer cancelled the ambulance and left the scene around 9:50 p.m., family members called for another ambulance.
Those paramedics found the man’s condition required “urgent transport to hospital,” the report said.
The man was operated on at the Hull Hospital shortly after his arrival, but his health deteriorated and he died a few days later.
The coroner said the death was ultimately an accident due to a cerebral hemorrhage from severe trauma.
A fall involved
Coroner Pascale Boulay began her investigation after the 69-year-old man’s death in August 2020.
“We give a lot of responsibility to our police officers, but at a certain point we also have to give them some [of] the tools,” said Boulay in an interview.
“There are some situations where they don’t have the ability and they don’t have the expertise to do that, and in this case, I think [that] is the situation.”
According to the report, the man had fallen while leaving an elevator in his building and hit his head. The report found the man was showing signs of confusion because of the fall, not his age.
The coroner said the officer’s persistence in wanting to cancel the ambulance for the man “raises a major issue.”
“He did not know and yet he in fact, without knowing it, made a diagnosis of loss of autonomy when he did not have the required expertise and he was not authorized to make this type of assessment,” the report said.
The report does not say whether the man would have had a better chance of surviving if the paramedics had intervened earlier.
Police say lessons learned
Beyond calling for better clarity on police cancelling ambulances and education on head trauma, the coroner recommends paramedic services properly validate instances when ambulances are cancelled by police.
Gatineau police say they implemented recommendations from the report prior to it being public and Boulay praised the service for its co-operation.
“The first thing is, we want to offer sympathy to the family,” said SPVG Insp. Gaétan Lafrance. “We learn from that event, and we take all the action necessary to make sure those kinds of consequences don’t happen again.”
Lafrance says ambulance-cancelling policies have been clarified.
He said police respond to different kinds of calls and many involve the elderly or people with mental health issues.
In instances where paramedics have been called, police can now determine to cancel the request if another service is coming, such as a community service group or mental health service.
No criminal charges
The coroner’s investigation was briefly stalled due to an investigation by Quebec’s police watchdog, the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI).
Ultimately no criminal charges were brought against the police officer who canceled the ambulance, but he is set to appear before a police ethics tribunal in December for a hearing.
Lafrance would not comment on whether this officer is still employed by the service, saying it was “confidential” information.
The family of the 69-year-old man who died told Radio-Canada they did not wish to comment.