Quebec\u2019s social services minister says he learned in May of three deaths of children under the care of the Batshaw youth protection agency, but didn\u2019t see a need to share the information with the public.<\/p>\n
Lionel Carmant offered his first public comments on the deaths Wednesday, six days after The Gazette revealed that three children died in March<\/a> while under the care of Batshaw Youth and Family Centres.<\/p>\n Carmant, who resumed his social services portfolio in late April after a five-month hiatus from the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec caucus, said in an interview that Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec and the Health and Social Services Ministry already had an action plan in place when he learned about the deaths in May.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat came out last week was not news to me,\u201d the minister told The Gazette. \u201cI\u2019ve been on the subject since I came back into the position.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gazette reported last week that a four-year-old girl and two teenagers died in March while under the care of the Batshaw agency, which provides English-language services to children across the island of Montreal.<\/p>\n The four-year-old, who had bruises on her body and showed signs of malnutrition when she died, was supposed to receive regular visits from Batshaw workers, but she hadn\u2019t been visited in months after the caseworker assigned to her switched departments.<\/p>\n A 17-year-old boy had been waiting months for Batshaw to assign him a caseworker when he took his own life. The other child, a 16-year-old girl, also died by suicide.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure what would be the advantage of publicly coming out with this information,\u201d Carmant said when asked why deaths in youth protection aren\u2019t reported to the public.<\/p>\n \u201cChildren die in the neonatal unit every day,\u201d he said, but their deaths also aren\u2019t reported as they happen.<\/p>\n The coroner is investigating all three deaths, he said, and \u201cas minister, I have to wait for the conclusions of the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n Carmant said he meets regularly with Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec and the Health and Social Services Ministry to discuss the situation at Batshaw and that the agency put in place an action plan following the deaths.<\/p>\n Six new caseworkers were hired for Batshaw\u2019s evaluation and orientation department, which responds to children whose cases are flagged to the agency, Carmant said.<\/p>\n Batshaw also made efforts to whittle down its wait-list, temporarily assigning workers from other departments to take part in a blitz that Carmant said shrank the list to 70 children, compared with the 437 who were on the wait-list at this time last year.<\/p>\n