Indigenous Woman Records Slurs By Hospital Staff Before Her Death

An Atikamekw woman turned her phone on and did a broadcast on Facebook Live while she lay dying in a hospital bed in Joliette, Quebec. The video appears to show her being insulted and sworn at by hospital staff, with some throwing racial slurs at her.

Racism at the hospital

The death of Joyce Echaquan on September 28 prompted an immediate outcry from her home community of Manawan, which is about 250 kilometers north of Montreal. The incident spurred a fast and decisive action on the part of the provincial government.

Echaquan was a mother of seven children, and her death will be the subject of a coroner's inquiry and an administrative probe, according to the Quebec government. The nurse who was involved in her treatment has been dismissed.

However, that dismissal does not ease the pain of Echaquan's husband, Carol Dube, who was interviewed by Radio-Canada. His voice trembled with emotion as he told the story about how his wife went to the hospital with a stomach ache on September 26 and died two days later.

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Echaquan's relatives told Radio-Canada that she had a history of heart problems, and she felt she was being given too much morphine.

The video was published by CBC News, and the 37-year-old was heard screaming in distress and repeatedly called for help.

Eventually, her video picks up the voices of staff members, with one hospital staff member telling her she's "stupid as hell."

Another hospital staff member was heard saying that Echaquan made bad life choices and asked her what her children would say if they saw her in that state.

Dube said that it is clear that the hospital staff were degrading his wife, and he does not understand how something like this could happen in 2020.

Mary Hannaburg, the vice-president of Quebec Native Women, said that the video is very difficult to listen to. She said that the statements that are made are not going to be tolerated as those are of a racist nature.

Government's response

Quebec Premier Francois Legault said at a news conference about COVID-19 on September 29 that the situation was not acceptable and that one of the nurses involved had been fired.

When he was asked if the way Echaquan was treated as an indication of systemic racism, he maintained that it was not. He added that they do not have that kind of way of dealing with "First Nations people" in the hospitals in Quebec. He also said that they are working on the racism in Quebec, referring to an anti-racism committee that he set up this year.

The death of Echaquan came days before the anniversary of the Viens report, the result of a commission into the mistreatment of Indigenous people in Quebec.

The report found it is impossible to deny Indigenous people in Quebec are victims of systemic discrimination in accessing public services, including health-care service.

Ghislain Picard, the head of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador, said that what happened at the hospital is part of a long series of dramas experienced by Indigenous women in public services.