1 minute of silence: Inside the Quebec ER that cared for abandoned newborn who died

Dr. Marc-Antoine Pigeon was at the tail end of a busy overnight shift when he learned paramedics were on their way with a newborn who had been found unresponsive at a bus shelter early Monday morning in Longueuil, Que.

The mood immediately changed, said the emergency physician at Charles-Le Moyne hospital.

“All the tiredness and the bad feelings from the night that were accumulated and the dream of our beds just went away,” he said.

Paramedics were attempting to resuscitate the newborn when the baby was rushed into the hospital — right as Dr. Camille Tétreault was preparing for her day shift.

She was still in leggings when she joined the team of at least 15 people trying to revive the baby. The newborn was still attached to the placenta, naked and very cold, when paramedics found them just after 6:30 a.m. ET, according to the paramedic service for Quebec’s Montérégie region.

After an hour of performing resuscitation manoeuvres, the medical team made the difficult decision to stop, said Pigeon.

Then, without any parents around to break the news to, the doctors held a minute of silence to “grieve that baby that no one knew,” as he put it.

ER doctors share what it was like trying to save abandoned newborn who died in Longueuil, Que.

The gesture is something Tétreault tries to do every time she’s faced with a difficult loss, she said.

“We get used to seeing trauma everywhere. It stays difficult,” she said. “I’m sad for everything that happened that day; the baby, the mom, the social safety net and like all my colleagues who had to work through that day also.”

Later Monday morning, the Service de police de l’agglomération de Longueuil (SPAL) arrested a 33-year-old woman in connection with the baby’s death.

The woman was released from police custody Tuesday, the SPAL said, adding she received psychological and physical support and remains under the care of appropriate resources. Police aren’t confirming if the woman is the baby’s mother.

“The investigation is underway and no charges have been laid yet. Police still can’t determine if there will be any charges at all,” a spokesperson for the SPAL, Jacqueline Pierre, wrote in a statement to CBC.

According to the executive director of La Halte du coin, a homeless shelter not far from the bus stop where the baby was found, the woman in question had taken a seat at its warming centre around 3 a.m. and fallen asleep.

When she stood up from her seat around 8 a.m., Pierre Rousseau says his team noticed something abnormal and told police officers who were already there looking for someone in distress.

Police took charge of the woman, however they would not confirm to CBC whether this was the same woman arrested in connection with the baby’s death.

Pigeon says he feels for the baby’s mother who may have felt like she had no other options.

“There are resources,” he said. “Of course you may feel distressed but all the medical professionals, police, firefighters — everyone working to help others — are there to help you without any judgment.”

Later that day, Pigeon took to Facebook to share his experience in an effort to show what daily life is like for doctors in light of the adoption of Bill 2. Doctors across the province have decried the health minister’s special law, arguing it paints them as lazy and responsible for dysfunction inside the health-care system.

The law, in part, ties doctors’ remuneration to collective performance indicators like reducing ER wait times.

“How can we calculate our performance as an emergency department and as a physician by myself, through such human cases, through such humanity, such distress that we have to deal with,” said Pigeon.

“I don’t want to have to think about being ‘performant’ in every minute of my day because sometimes some cases need more attention, more efforts, more time.”