Quebec coroner feels Joyce Echaquan would be alive if she were a white woman

A coroner who issued a report last week into the death of Joyce Echaquan that urged Quebec to recognize systemic racism and root it out of institutions addressed her findings today.

Gehane Kamel oversaw the inquiry into the death of Echaquan, finding that while her death was accidental, the racism and prejudice the Atikamekw woman was subjected to contributed to her death.

"I must confess in all sincerity that this public inquiry and some witnesses have shaken me," she said, recounting the events that led to the mother of seven's death.

Echaquan, a 37-year-old mother of seven, filmed herself on Facebook Live as a nurse and an orderly were heard making derogatory comments toward her shortly before her death Sept. 28, 2020, at a hospital in Joliette, Que., northeast of Montreal.

Kamel said racism and discrimination contributed to her death and that the tragedy could have been prevented. She called on Quebec to recognize the existence of systemic racism in its instutions.