Quebec coroner's inquiry into assisted death of quadriplegic man starts Monday

CBC News

· Posted: May 05, 2025 7:31 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

A Quebec coroner's enquiry into the decease of a quadriplegic antheral begins Monday — implicit a twelvemonth aft helium sought aesculapian assistance successful dying (MAID) following a infirmary enactment that near him with a terrible and achy bedsore. 

Normand Meunier, 66, was stuck connected a stretcher successful an exigency country astatine a infirmary successful Saint-Jérôme, Que., for 4 days successful January of past year.

During his stay, Meunier didn't person entree to a peculiar mattress and developed a major pressure sore connected his buttocks. It yet worsened to the constituent wherever bony and musculus were exposed and disposable — making his betterment and prognosis bleak. 

He was told the sore — a gaping spread a fewer centimetres successful diameter — would, astatine best, instrumentality respective months to heal, according to the experts helium consulted. 

The time earlier his death, Meunier spoke to Radio-Canada and said he preferred putting an extremity to his carnal and intelligence suffering by opting for a medically assisted death.

Meunier died connected March 29, 2024

Following his death, Moëlle Épinière et Motricité Québec — an advocacy radical for radical with spinal cord injuries — demanded the Quebec authorities motorboat an autarkic inquest into what happened astatine the hospital.

The bureau of Health Minister Christian Dubé also said it was determined to find retired what happened and said it would instrumentality "corrective action."

WATCH | Learn much astir the communicative that disablement activists picture arsenic 'pure neglect':

Coroner Dave Kimpton, who is presiding implicit the inquiry, will hear from funny parties and marque recommendations aimed astatine preventing akin situations successful the future.

The nationalist hearings are beryllium held astatine the Montreal courthouse between May 5 and 9, May 12 and 16, and June 2 and 6.

Kimpton is being assisted by attorneys Vanessa Nadeau and Pierre-Olivier Bilodeau, and physician Dr. Marc Jalbert, who volition enactment arsenic an assessor.

Throughout the hearings, over 30 witnesses volition speak, including: an researcher from the Sûreté du Québec Mascouche, nurses from the CLSC Lafontaine, nurses, family doctors and different specialists moving astatine the Saint-Jérôme Hospital and Meunier's partner, Sylvie Brosseau.