Ministère de la Sécurité publique - Refusal to transport a detainee to a medical appointment

A detainee who had had a motorcycle accident prior to his incarceration was refused access to a medical assessment requested by the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ).

When the man arrived at the detention facility in April, he specifically told them that he had a medical appointment with an external physician in July. However, the authorities refused to bring him to the appointment. The man never received an answer after having repeatedly asked when another appointment would be made with his physician.

The citizen’s complaint concerned:

• the detention facility’s refusal to take the man to the medical appointment made several months before.

The Québec Ombudsman’s investigation revealed that:

• the man was never taken to his July appointment because, according to the detention facility, the physician who was supposed to perform the assessment was away;
• a second appointment was made for October;
• a few days before the second appointment, the man was transferred to another detention facility that was not informed of the upcoming appointment;
• several other transfers occurred due to the man’s court appearances in other cases. The result was that no appointment was ever made;
• nearly a year passed after the initial appointment and the man had still not seen an external physician in order to have the medical evaluation requested by SAAQ.

The Québec Ombudsman asked the detention facility:

• to take appropriate action to schedule a medical appointment and make it possible for the detainee to get to it.

The detention facility agreed to act on the Québec Ombudsman’s request. An appointment was scheduled the month following the Québec Ombudsman’s intervention.