The Quebec coroner says there are many culprits in the deaths of 47 residents at a private long-term care home in the Montreal area in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coroner Géhane Kamel says the provincial government, the local health authority and the owners of the Herron care home “passed the ball around” while residents were left to die.

She spoke to reporters on Thursday for the first time since publishing her report earlier this week about her investigation into 53 deaths at multiple care homes – including Herron – during the first wave of the pandemic.

Kamel says her job wasn’t to blame specific people, but to make recommendations so a similar situation doesn’t happen again.

According to their report, residents of long-term care homes in Quebec have been kept in a blind spot while the provincial government responded to the approaching wave of the novel coronavirus in the spring of 2020. Almost 4,000 residents died between March and June this year.

Patrick Martin-Menard, a lawyer who represented some of the families of people whose deaths were investigated by Kamel, says their report is a good first step but that a full public inquiry is needed.

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