Maéva Vermette, year 3 studente year to Bachelor of Law at the University of Sherbrooke and a festival regular, has never been afraid to enjoy her favorite music in Montreal. It was during an injection by a potentially contaminated syringe at ÎleSoniq on August 10 that she quickly became familiar with post-exposure treatment against HIV and hepatitis.
“I felt like a burden in the system,” she says. In the moments that followed, she called 911 and headed to the nearest hospital. First refused at the emergency room of the Verdun Hospital, Maéva went to the University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM), but not without problems. “I had to convince a nurse, then a doctor and finally the emergency manager,” she laments. She was finally taken care of within 72 hours following her ordeal by the Urban Medical Clinic of the Latin Quarter (CMUQL).
This delay is “very important” for people who come into contact with HIV or hepatitis, explains Camille Angers, clinical nurse at the CMUQL. The nurse with eight years of experience intervened in only a handful of cases from festivals last summer.
Lack of communication with the CHUM
While Maéva and other patients like her were referred to the CHUM emergency services, Ms. Angers says that there is no formal agreement between the CHUM and her clinic. to support this type of clientele.
“It would be good to have a discussion with the CHUM”
Camille Angers
The professional notices an increase in these cases at the clinic: half a dozen per year, she estimates. She considers that it is necessary to have an agreement and to evaluate the capacity of the nursing staff in the clinic to “prevent this type of case in the future”. The CMUQL has established an agreement with Actuel, a clinic also with a prevention and sexual health mission. Both are open alternately on Saturdays and Sundays, and welcome patients redirected by the CHUM emergency room.
Life on hold for three months
Stomach pain, nausea, fatigue: this is all that patients can expect during the 28 days of treatment post-exposure to HIV. Several medications are available to them such as Truvada, Isentress and Vicarvi. For Maéva Vermette, the side effects were numerous and slowed down the young athlete for a week.
She is still waiting to reach the three-month post-exposure threshold for her samples to accurately indicate whether she was infected with HIV. When leaving her first follow-up appointment at the CMUQL, Maéva learns that screening has an effectiveness rate of 85% one month after exposure. Clinical nurse Camille Angers understands that most of her patients are not informed about post-exposure prophylaxis until they need it.
Tense climate at the festival
Most cases of assault and sexual violence observed at festivals in Montreal are “alcohol-related,” according to Alexandrine Beauvais-Lamoureux, co-founder and CEO of the organization Scène & Sauve. The organization deploys its “sentries” at festivals, i.e. employees trained in first aid. Ms. Beauvais-Lamoureux notes that the terrain is more dangerous than when she arrived in 2021. According to her, two factors are involved: the increasingly polarized socio-political context, where young women and men are camped in political divisions “woke” and “anti-woke”, and the fact that most young people aged 18 to 25 attending festivals have been “deprived of social contacts and formative experiences” during the pandemic.
The problem is “institutional”
The co-founder of Scène & Sauve has never seen a syringe attack in the course of her work. According to her, the presence of her organization at festivals is “a dissuasive factor”. Also a candidate for Master of Public Health at the University of Montreal, she believes that the health network is not ready to face this new reality. “This is not due to the lack of preparation of those involved to react after the fact,” she says, but rather to the “lack of investment in prevention” which in her opinion is an institutional flaw. Maéva Vermette has not forgotten her experience of “tossing around” in the health network, as she describes it, and continues to recount her journey on her Tiktok page. While waiting for her third and final check for HIV, it is the “two-month wait” that is keeping her in suspense today.
