Joyce Echaquan’s community fights for change to health system 3 years after death

The executive director of Joyce's Principle office, says Joyce Echaquan's death exposed the reality that many Indigenous people face when they seek help from the health system.

It has been three years since Joyce Echaquan died in hospital after filming staff insulting her, but for her family and her First Nation, the fight continues to ensure a legacy of better treatment for Indigenous people.

In July, her Atikamekw community officially launched the Joyce’s Principle office, which aims to lobby for the adoption of a document that community members presented to the Quebec and Canadian governments after Echaquan’s death on Sept. 28, 2020.

Joyce’s Principle “aims to guarantee to all Indigenous people the right of equitable access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services, as well as the right to enjoy the best possible physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.”

It includes a statement by Echaquan’s husband, Carol Dubé , who asks that his wife’s voice “be the beginning of real change for all Indigenous people so no one ever again falls victim to systemic racism.”

Jennifer Petiquay-Dufresne, executive director of the new office, says Echaquan’s death exposed the reality that many Indigenous people face when they seek help from the health system.

“What I say often is that Joyce’s death was a light, a lantern that she sent us to shed light on the situation, to put it in view for everyone,” Petiquay-Dufresne said in a phone interview.

Echaquan, a 37-year-old mother of seven from Manawan, filmed herself on Facebook Live as a nurse and an orderly were heard making derogatory comments toward her while she suffered at a hospital in Joliette, Que., northeast of Montreal. The video of her treatment in September 2020 went viral and drew outrage and condemnation across the country.

A coroner said in 2021 that Echaquan would likely still be alive if she were a white woman and that systemic racism “undeniably” contributed to her death from pulmonary edema, an excess of fluid in the lungs. The report also recommended that the Quebec government acknowledge the existence of systemic racism and root it out of institutions.