Video Showing Quebec Hospital Staff Insulting Dying Indigenous Woman Sparks Widespread Outrage
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - A livestream video that appears to show hospital staff mocking and insulting a Quebec woman as she lay dying in her bed has sparked widespread outrage as well as multiple investigations.
Joyce Echaquan, a mother of seven, died on Monday at a Joliette hospital, where she’d arrived just two days earlier with stomach pain, according to CBC News.
In her final moments, the 37-year-old, who is a member of the Atikamekw Indigenous tribe found in Southwest Quebec, hit record on Facebook Live to capture the disturbing behavior of those who were supposed to be caring for her.
“You’re stupid as hell,” one nurse says in French.
Despite Echaquan’s cries of pain, the verbal abuse continued, according to The Guardian.
“What are your children going to think, seeing you like this?”
Echaquan’s relatives told Radio-Canada she had a history of heart problems and that they believe she was given too much morphine, which may have contributed to her death.
Quebec Premier François Legault condemned the incident during a press conference on Tuesday. One of the nurses involved has also been fired, he added.
“The nurse, what she said, is totally unacceptable, it’s racist and she was fired,” Premier Legault he said. “We must fight this racism.”
A 2015 report by CBC News revealed that racism against indigenous people in Canada’s healthcare system contributed to their overall poorer health outcomes when compared to non-indigenous Canadians.
Mary Hannaburg, vice-president of Quebec Native Women, said the video is a “very hard thing to hear and to listen to.”
“The statements that are made are not going to be tolerated. Those are of a racist nature,” she told the news station. “We will not tolerate racism in any given form toward Indigenous women.”
A coroner’s investigation in addition to a separate probe by the local health authority,will help determine the circumstances leading up to her death and are each currently underway.
