How free legal support at Montreal Children’s Hospital is helping patients’ families – Montreal | 24CA News
As a sufferer of home violence, it’s been a troublesome journey for Sarah.
For security causes, Global News has agreed to not use the mom’s actual identify.
Her daughter was admitted to the Montreal Children’s Hospital final yr when she fell sick, shortly after shifting to Canada from overseas.
“My situation is so difficult — for two and a half months living in my apartment, he put in cameras inside, he was not allowing me phones,” Sarah mentioned of her former companion.
After discovering a solution to escape her residence, she was in a position to get assist from the hospital.
The hospital assigned her a social employee who related her with their in-house triage lawyer.
“I meet with her [the lawyer] and first day she said one sentence: ‘I am with you,’” mentioned Sarah.
Aude Exertier, a lawyer with Justice Pro Bono, was in a position to assist the mom with a number of issues.
She helped her fill out a housing utility, receive her medical insurance card and join household allowances.
The group additionally discovered her a lawyer for her court docket proceedings associated to her custody and home violence instances.
“Most of the time, the families or the parents they don’t know they have a legal issue,” mentioned Exertier. “They don’t know that a lawyer can help. So that’s why it’s really important that a triage lawyer is part of the medical setting in the hospital.”
The partnership between Justice Pro Bono and the Montreal Children’s Hospital has been in place for six years.
Exertier says the group helps about 50 households a yr.
Staff on the hospital say the medical-legal partnership tremendously helps each households and docs navigate sophisticated conditions.
“As a clinician, I don’t know who to turn to — our social workers might but there’s that time that it takes to find the right people, even knowing what kind of law, what kind of lawyer you might go to,” mentioned Dr. Patricia Li, Montreal Children’s Hospital pediatrician.
“All these steps can be barriers to efficient care and some of these issues are quite timely.”
At the second, Justice Pro Bono is just obtainable to households on the Montreal Children’s Hospital, however the group is hoping to increase their companies to different well being establishments all through the province.
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