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Canada is sending in the army starting Saturday to help alleviate staffing shortages in Quebec’s care facilities for seniors, as the province grapples with the country’s highest death rate from the coronavirus.

Like the United States and Europe, Canada is struggling to curb the spread of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease in nursing homes.

Conditions in Quebec’s private and public long-term care homes have worsened due to a chronic staff shortage and, critics said, a 2015 restructuring of the sector that led to reduced local oversight. The military will deploy 125 soldiers with medical training to nursing homes in the province, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday. Quebec is the epicenter of Canada’s coronavirus outbreak, with more than half of the country’s 30,670 cases and its 1,250 deaths.

© Reuters/Patrick Doyle Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Health Minister Danielle McCann announced Friday that she has appointed a special inspector — in addition to a police probe, a coroner’s inquiry and a public health investigation — to review the handling of the tragedy at the CHSLD Résidence Herron, where at least 33 people have died during the COVID-19 pandemic .

“We have sent a written request for a special inspector, Mr. Sylvain Gagnon, who is a very experienced manager and even has been a deputy minister, to review all (aspects of) the situation,” McCann said, flanked by Quebec Premier François Legault.

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