First Nation woman's death inquest yields 42 recommendations to improve remote health care

Jordan Quequish says he's always protected his sisters.

As he closed the inquest into the death of his youngest sister, Ruthann, with a traditional song and drum, he expressed hope that others are protected from the same pain his family has gone through.

Ruthann's family advocated for a discretionary inquest into her death. More than seven years after the 31-year-old's passing, three weeks of proceedings wrapped up on Friday in Thunder Bay, Ont.

A jury of five heard testimony from 22 witnesses before delivering its verdict: that Ruthann died on April 1, 2017 in her home community of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, of undiagnosed and untreated diabetic ketoacidosis. They ruled that the means of death in her case was "undetermined," as opposed to homicide, suicide, accident, or natural causes.

The means by which she died was labelled as "undetermined," but according to Nishnawbe Aski Nation, the family wanted her death classified as a homicide, "because their daughter died from an untreated disease in an under-serviced community," says a news release from NAN issued Friday.

NAN represents 49 First Nations across Treaties 9 and 5, including Kingfisher Lake.

Jurors provided 42 recommendations, with the goal of preventing future, similar deaths by improving the health-care system, with specific focuses on diabetes care and patient advocacy.

"We really need people to listen to our people, to First Nations people. They're forgetting about the agreement that they made to our people, and we see that there [are] more and more broken promises today," Jordan Quequish said after the jury delivered its verdict.

The verdict and recommendations will be posted online.

Kingfisher Lake First Nation is part of Treaty 9. Fewer than 600 people live in the remote Oji-Cree community, which is about 350 kilometres northeast of Sioux Lookout.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler expressed disappointment with the verdict that Ruthann's means of death was undetermined, instead saying in Friday's news release that "it was neglect, racism, and chronic underfunding that killed Ruthann."

The jury heard that Ruthann visited her community's nursing station multiple times in the days leading up to her death, but a number of challenges, including access to medical information, communication breakdowns, and the lack of regular physicians in Kingfisher Lake impacted her care. Physicians only come to Kingfisher Lake 60 days a year.

"That speaks to just how racist this health-care system that we're still subject to is, [which] is still rooted in the colonial and the racist policies that flow from the Indian Act, that still is very much a part of our lives," Fiddler told members of the media on Friday.

NAN first declared a health state of emergency in 2016 before making another emergency declaration earlier this year.