Learn more about your health and social services rights

A user has the right to participate in decision-making

Published on June 6, 2024 by Azalée Larouche. Journal Le Canada Français, page A-20.

Everyone who receives services or care from the health and social services network has rights, as defined in the Loi sur les services de santé et les services sociaux (LSSS). To ensure your rights are respected, it’s important to know what they are. Today, we present you with the right to participate in decisions, i.e. to take part in any decision affecting your state of health and well-being, and to participate in the plan of intervention, services and modifications.

To illustrate this right, here’s a case study: Roseline is 67 years old and in great loss of autonomy. She has been receiving CLSC services for ten years. Since then, her condition has greatly deteriorated, and she now requires, among other things, a lift to get her up and down. Until now, she received 23 hours of services over 15 days, including 9 hours of assistance with meals and housekeeping, and 14 hours of bedtime assistance.

However, her caseworker had to leave her position and was replaced by Jacques, a new caseworker. After only a week on the job, he asked Roseline for a meeting to assess his health. This meeting was followed by several others to impose his vision. These meetings were very arduous and nerve-racking.

During these meetings, we tried to convince Roseline to move into an adapted apartment, to use Meals on Wheels to help with meals, and to do her grocery shopping online.

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Roseline felt harassed, helpless and uprooted. She explained to Jacques that she had no intention of losing her landmarks and friends by leaving her current home. What’s more, Roseline has to eat mainly vegetarian meals, given her health condition. And when she orders online, she often receives food whose quality leaves much to be desired, not to mention the absence of certain products due to lack of availability.

A few weeks later, she had the unpleasant surprise of having three hours of mealtime assistance cut off, as the service allocation committee considered Roseline to be showing ill will by refusing the solutions offered by the intervener.

We helped Roseline file a complaint to denounce the situation to the commissioner, who upheld the decision of the CLSC allocation committee. We helped her pursue her complaint at second instance to the Québec Ombudsman, who ruled in her favor, invoking her right to participate in decisions by taking her reality into account.