Quebec paramedics told not to perform CPR for months due to COVID-19

Paramedics in Montreal and Laval, Quebec, were instructed not to perform CPR on patients due to the risk of spreading coronavirus, the CTV News reports.

"During the summer and spring we just modified our protocol to protect the paramedic, to protect the health system, to protect the people—all people—because we didn't know… how to protect ourselves, how contagious it was," claimed Urgences-Sante director Pierre-Patrick Dupont. Urgences-Sante is the emergency medical service serving Montreal and Laval.

Dupont's statement, however, conflicts with the time frame. The order was given on April 4 and was not rescinded until September 21, over five and a half months later, when health experts already knew much more about the nature of the virus. Only children, pregnant women, and individuals suffering from hypothermia were exempted from the order.

Accord to Dupont, "[we would] go see the people in cardiac arrest, we [would] just start the protocol, and when we see the flatline, that's where we stop the protocol." He argued that because the chance of revival during CPR is only between one and two percent, and even fewer would make a full recovery in hospital, it would overload intensive care units (ICUs) to resuscitate individuals through CPR.

Dupont insisted, however, that avoiding the use of CPR did not mean that paramedics did nothing at all. "[We] just adjusted and worked differently with a different protocol," he said.

Urgences-Sante said they do not know how many people were affected by the order.

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé avoided directly discussing the matter in a Tuesday press conference. Dubé became Health Minister in June and was not in his position when the order was first instated. He claimed he had no knowledge of the order until recently, telling reporters, "I think that the order was for Montreal and Laval, that is what was explained to me in the last few days."

When further pressed on the matter, Dubé said "[it] is not up to me to hold a trial whether we should or not have (asked) an ethical committee."

"I cannot go back in the past, especially to the start of the crisis," Dubé continued. "It went very quickly and people had to make decisions and we issued orders to the best of our medical knowledge at the time." He did not explain how he was unaware of the order, or why it was not rescinded earlier.