The lawsuit, filed last summer, alleges that the Outaouais Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSSO) sent much heavier cases to La Victorienne than was stipulated in the contract.
The Sidney Santé Group, which owned the intermediate resource housing 58 vulnerable people, maintains that the CISSSO entrusted it with “a disproportionate number” of people suffering from serious behavioral disorders requiring “continuous assistance”, without providing money for additional staff. In particular, it is a question of users who spread their stools on the walls.
The company also places the responsibility on the shoulders of the CISSSO for the “serious problems” experienced by a user who did not receive their epilepsy syrup for several weeks, arguing that the error was made by a network nurse. audience.
Sidney Santé also maintains that it reported to the CISSSO its fears regarding the administration of medications and its additional staff needs, from the first weeks following the opening of the resource.
Abuse
The La Victorienne residence, located in the Gatineau sector, was in operation from summer 2021 to spring 2024. The CISSSO purchased the building and took over from Sidney Santé by converting the premises into a rehabilitation center.
In September 2023, The Law had revealed that cases of “organizational mistreatment through negligence” were detected at La Victorienne by the CISSSO complaints commissioner. This was among others the case for Benoît Lauzon, a young man with Down syndrome who was housed there in the weeks preceding his death.
The lawsuit filed by the Sidney Health Group also claims that one of the commissioner’s reports “is unequivocally biased and contains several blind spots that make it impossible to give the correct picture of the real cause of the issues raised.”
The week following the publication of the first reports, the CISSSO took control of La Victorienne as part of a provisional administration.
In its lawsuit, Sidney Health claims to have collaborated and demonstrated “exemplary diligence” for this provisional administration. However, the company does not recognize “the legitimacy and validity” of this measure, which it considers “wrongful and abusive”.
The Public Protector also produced a damning report on this matter, noting the “recurrence of shortcomings” in this resource on rue Lucienne-Bourgeois.
Unreimbursed expenses
The Sidney Santé Group and its two owners, Stanley Victor and Cyndie Mardi, allege that they have paid large sums to meet the needs of users sent to La Victorienne.
The company says it “was forced to inject between $100,000 to $200,000 per month,” from “the personal money” of its owners, “for the hiring of additional staff, the use of an agency placement as well as numerous damages caused by users. These expenses would reach “a total of three million dollars”.
The lawsuit alleges that the sums allocated by the public network “were largely insufficient to […] offer quality services and guarantee the safety of users. Sidney Santé also believes that the CISSSO “knowingly ignored requests” made to obtain additional funds and that its employees “demonstrated bad faith on several occasions”.
The company thus believes that the CISSSO “unduly” benefited from the sums it injected into the operation of La Victorienne.
Marc P. Desjardins was the provisional administrator of La Victorienne. (Patrick Woodbury/Le Droit)
-Sidney Santé maintains that in the context of discussions with a potential buyer, the provisional administrator appointed by the CISSSO “admitted that the current financing model [des ressources intermédiaires] was not viable.
Sidney Santé also judges that the Ministry of Health “knowingly demonstrated negligence by ignoring the financial needs necessary to ensure the well-being and safety of users”.
The company maintains that Quebec “decided to intervene only when the affair attracted media attention and that [le CISSSO] triggered a provisional administration. The lawsuit emphasizes in this regard that the budget allocated to the new Parc-du-Lac-Beauchamp Rehabilitation Center “almost quadrupled” compared to what was granted for La Victorienne.
“Inundated with stress”
Stanley Victor and Cyndie Mardi claim to have been “heavily concerned, saddened and flooded with stress” by the fate of the users sent to La Victorienne, because they “could not benefit from the care and services they deserved due to the willful blindness and/or inaction” of the CISSSO and ministerial authorities.
The owners of the Sidney Santé Group claim that “their lives were completely turned upside down” and that “their dreams of helping vulnerable people” were destroyed “during the media coverage of the CISSSO report” and the implementation of the provisional administration.
They say they were forced to sell all of the group’s intermediary resources, “more often than not on unfavorable terms.”
“Today weakened, unhappy and sick, the applicants have lost their main vocation and must now reorient themselves without any certain prospect of employment in the same field.”
— Excerpt from the lawsuit
The Sidney Health Group is claiming a total of $4,557,000:
- Monetary losses: $3,000,000
- Lost profits: $1,500,000
- Material damage and others: $35,000
- Professional fees for accountants: $22,000
Cyndie Mardi and Stanley Victor are claiming $60,000 each for “trouble, annoyance and inconvenience.”
None of these allegations have been proven in court.
Before the holidays, a Superior Court judge ruled that the Sidney Health Group must provide details on certain allegations to the CISSSO and the Ministry of Health, while ordering the striking of certain passages from the motion initiating initial proceedings.
The CISSSO did not want to comment on this file “given that the lawsuit is active”. The Ministry of Health also did not wish to react “in order not to harm the progress of the current process”.
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