{"id":2304,"date":"2012-10-24T00:48:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T00:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rf.podcastfixit.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/24\/ambulance-attendant-demands-parents\/"},"modified":"2015-06-01T19:42:01","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:42:01","slug":"ambulance-attendant-demands-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2012\/10\/24\/ambulance-attendant-demands-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambulance attendant demands parents speak French"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-year-old daughter unconscious and in seizure<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

By Robert Frank<\/b>
\nwww.thesuburban.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Mont\u00e9r\u00e9gie ambulance officials are declining to identify the ambulance attendant who put language politics ahead of the needs of two-year-old Ella Bergeron, Oct. 20.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\nElla was visiting her aunt Laura Bergeron\u2019s home in Hudson, when she fell ill, began seizing and became unresponsive.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThere was no eye contact. Her breathing became gurgling. Then she went into convulsions,\u201d Laura said. \u201cI perceived she was dying.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThe first responders from the Hudson fire department arrived quickly and were amazing, but they didn\u2019t have the equipment to continue to do fully what needed to be done.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAmbulance attendants showed up soon afterward and began by asking Ella\u2019s parents what had happened leading up to the seizure. That\u2019s when the medical emergency was compounded by language sensitivities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nYelled at traumatized parents<\/h3>\n
\n
\n\u201cThey asked us all the questions in French,\u201d recalled Ella\u2019s father, Marc Bergeron. \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t speak to me in English.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cI responded in French,\u201d said the fluently bilingual father \u201cbut a few times I had to pause and think about what he said because he would use a technical term.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cWith my daughter\u2019s life at stake, I asked if I could use my mother tongue. To which he replied \u2018Non.\u2019<\/i> I couldn\u2019t believe what I heard. So I asked him \u2018Tu ne parles pas l\u2019anglais?\u2019<\/i><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThat\u2019s when things escalated. He started yelling, and his tone of voice changed and he said \u2018Non, je parles fran\u00e7ais!\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhat the ambulance attendants didn\u2019t know was that Laura Bergeron had already lost two children, and family members were paralyzed by the fear that another young kin might die.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cOur panic was ten times that of a normal person, because we had already lost a child, and here it was with a niece,\u201d explained Laura. \u201cSo the whole trauma was all that much scarier.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThe ambulance attendant made my brother repeat everything. In our state of mind, we couldn\u2019t remember what the word for \u2018drooling\u2019 was,\u201d said Laura, who attended elementary school in French. Though Ella\u2019s mother Stephanie Hansen is a unilingual English New Brunswick native, she added, \u201cWith three fluently bilingual family members on hand, we were still unable to figure out the right words.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cIt could make a world of difference between the way that they treat or don\u2019t treat the child. That was not the time nor the place for my brother to have to struggle to find the right words. His inability to communicate was worrisome.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nMarc was so upset by the situation that he had to leave the room, and conjectured that the Hudson first responders, whom they had already given Ella\u2019s medical history in English, must have conveyed that information to the ambulance attendants in French.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe girl was taken to Lakeshore General Hospital, where she was treated and released around midnight.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cElla is one hundred per cent now,\u201d Marc confirmed.<\/div>\n

\n
<\/h3>\n

\nRight to be understood<\/h3>\n
\n
\nPatrick Jasmin, spokesman for the Mont\u00e9r\u00e9gie ambulance authority CETAM<\/a>, told The Suburban<\/i> in an interview that \u201cevery paramedic working for us understands English, even though they might not be able to speak it perfectly. When we give care in emergency situations, we communicate.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cThe situation is very sad because it\u2019s a stressful situation for everyone when there is a call for a child who has a seizure,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAt the time The Suburban <\/i>went to press, Jasmin said that he did not have sufficient information about the incident to provide details.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cAt this point, I don\u2019t have any papers at hand. I still have to read the reports and we even have some recordings but I don\u2019t want to answer questions without entirely knowing everything that happened.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cEvery patient who needs health care services has the right to be understood and give information to the health care giver,\u201d Jasmin affirmed. \u201cThat\u2019s the policy we have.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cWe know that it\u2019s a difficult situation when children are ill and we\u2019re happy that the child is doing well, and that the story ended well for her.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nLaura Bergeron has started a petition at: www.causes.com\/actions\/1695049<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two-year-old daughter unconscious and in seizure By Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Mont\u00e9r\u00e9gie ambulance officials are declining to identify the ambulance attendant who put language politics ahead of the needs of two-year-old Ella Bergeron, Oct. 20. Ella was visiting her aunt Laura Bergeron\u2019s home in Hudson, when she fell ill, began seizing and became unresponsive. \u201cThere was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAmbulance attendant demands parents speak French - Newscoverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newscoverage.org\/index.php\/2012\/10\/24\/ambulance-attendant-demands-parents\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ambulance attendant demands parents speak French - Newscoverage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two-year-old daughter unconscious and in seizure By Robert Frank www.thesuburban.com Mont\u00e9r\u00e9gie ambulance officials are declining to identify the ambulance attendant who put language politics ahead of the needs of two-year-old Ella Bergeron, Oct. 20. 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