B.C. child welfare official testifies at inquiry into teen’s death in Calgary
Global News
The boy died of bacterial sepsis in May 2013, which was brought on by complications from untreated diabetes and starvation.
A 15-year-old boy who died in Calgary weighing just 37 pounds was also near death in a British Columbia hospital about a decade earlier, a child welfare official from that province testified at the teen’s fatality inquiry.
Alexandru Radita was brought to a hospital in 2003 by ambulance with a bloated stomach, rotten teeth and thinning hair, and he was extremely underweight, the deputy director of Child Welfare in B.C. testified Tuesday at the Calgary inquiry.
“It was about insulin and it was probably the most grave report that we had on this family in British Columbia,” James Wale said. “It was a very concerning report. Alex was near death.”
Radita died of bacterial sepsis in May 2013, which was brought on by complications from untreated diabetes and starvation.
His parents, Emil and Rodica Radita, who were found guilty in 2017 of first-degree murder, refused to accept the boy had diabetes when he was diagnosed with the disease in 2000 in B.C.
He was hospitalized twice due to malnutrition and taken into foster care before later being returned to his parents who moved to Alberta in 2008.
READ MORE: Alberta judge overseeing inquiry into teen’s death adjourns to seek more witnesses
The inquiry was adjourned in September in an effort to bring in witnesses from British Columbia.
