During the third day of hearings of the commission of inquiry into the death of Maureen Breau and her attacker, the psychiatrist who accompanied Isaac Brouillard Lessard until the tragic day of March 27 testified about the events leading up to the death of his patient.
dr. Hélène Poirier was assigned to Isaac Brouillard Lessard’s file in February 2022, after Dr. Marc Tannous, his last psychiatrist, recommended his patient to her after his move to Trois-Rivières.
The goal of Dr. Poirier’s treatment program was to increase the medication dosage of Isaac Brouillard Lessard, who at the time appeared to be compliant with the antipsychotic drug Seroquel.
The psychiatrist testified that in 2022 she had difficulties in reaching her patient. She was also unable to meet him between April and October, especially because of his work.
Coroner Kamel was surprised by those meetings that did not happen with the patient. She and Dr. Poirier agreed that it was not normal or desirable practice for such a long delay to occur between appointments with mentally ill patients.
dr. Poirier explained that the man had a number of jobs at companies in Trois-Rivières over the course of a year, which he lost one after another. When she saw him again, in October 2022, he was working for a trucking company.
Patient irritable
What emerges from Dr. Poirier’s testimony about the year she was Isaac Brouillard Lessard’s psychiatrist is that she found herself in front of an individual irritable
but all in all stable
AND equal to himself
.
dr. Poirier confirmed that the personality disorder he suffered from emerged during the follow-ups she conducted with him, but she did not note a resurgence of the schizoaffective disorder he was afflicted with during their encounters.
However, a phone call that took place a few days before the tragedy, on March 22, 2023, went wrong.
During this phone call, Isaac Brouillard Lessard became angry: he insulted her and shouted at her, to the extent that the psychiatrist had to hang up the phone.
She does not think that this was an unusual situation in terms of her patient’s personality.
However, the next day she was able to talk to him again. His patient seemed to have calmed down and they were able to arrange a meeting on April 7 to prepare to appear before the Quebec Administrative Court.
Isaac Brouillard Lessard’s lack of cooperation also led to the termination of closer monitoring of the community.
Three months before the tragic events, he was no longer the subject of intensive monitoring in the community. His file was closed because the intervention team assessed that he was uncooperative and temperamental boiling
and that he he loses his temper when he is upset
.
His psychiatrist also noted that the service offered by his clinical team was not like that more adapted
to his needs since Mr. Brouillard Lessard refused most of the services offered.