Dead because she was Indigenous': Qubec coroner says Atikemekw woman a victim of systemic racism

[Jilly_in_VA]

An Indigenous woman who was taunted by nursing staff as she lay dying in a Quebec hospital would probably be alive today if she were white, a coroner has concluded.

The death of Joyce Echaquan was an “undeniable” example of systematic racism in the province, the Québec coroner Géhane Kamel told reporters on Tuesday.

“From the first minute she entered the hospital, a label was placed on Ms Echaquan,” she said.

In September 2021, Echaquan, 37, entered a hospital in Joliette, where she told staff she had a heart condition. As her pain escalated and staff appeared indifferent to her pleas for help, Echaquan started livestreaming her experience on Facebook.

In the footage, she grimaced as nurses call her “stupid as hell”. “Are you done acting stupid? Are you done?” asked one nurse in French as Echaquan moaned in pain.

“You made some bad choices, my dear,” another nurse said. “What are your children going to think, seeing you like this?”

Echaquan, an Atikemekw mother of seven, died of pulmonary oedema linked to a rare heart condition.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/06/joyce-echaquan-coroner-indigenous-systemic-racism-death
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Sickening.

[Bayard]

1. In the article,

There's nothing about a doctor ever seeing her. Sounds like nursing staff condemned her to die of their own accord.

[Spazito]

2. The Premier of Quebec has yet to acknowledge the systemic racism in Quebec...

He's disgusting.

[Hortensis]

3. 37 years old with seven children waiting for their mother at home.

What was done to her in the hospital, as helpless in her bed as George Floyd was with the weight keeping him from breathing on the street, is heartbreaking and incredibly horrifying. Of course the business is already being sued, but the staff involved need to prosecuted and stripped of their licenses.

[maxsolomon]

4. I have a white, male acquaintance in his 50s who was pushed out of hospital

that he went to for back pain. They suspected him of faking to get an opiate scrip, and not without reason, given his appearance: disheveled, poorly groomed, perpetually stoned on weed, unemployed, and living in an old RV that he drove to the hospital. Of course, he has no health insurance.

It must be hard to have to determine who's a faker and who isn't, but that doesn't excuse this error.

You can be heads will roll over this woman's death - it's Canada. In the US, I'd be less certain.

[malaise]

5. Institutional racism is it is

Racism is ingrained in way too many people

[Withywindle]

7. They decided on sight that her life had no value

Not only did they not help her, they treated her cruelly as she died.


This is institutional racism: treating people as less than human. It's horrifying and it's EVERYWHERE.

Rest in Power, Joyce Echaquan. I hope people remember you with love, and also with outrage, and that "nurses" like this are identified and removed wherever they may be.

[Ms. Toad]

8. Indigenous and female.

A lot of the same stuff happens to women (of all races), as well, who are viewed as hysterical (word choice deliberate), and whose concerns are not treated seriously. That's on top of lingering effects of being excluded from many drug trials because of the risk that they might be/become pregnant - so the impact of many drugs on women (children, racial minorities) are not as well known.