Family of Joyce Echaquan files $2.7-million civil lawsuit over her death

The family of Joyce Echaquan, an Indigenous woman mocked by staff as she lay dying in a Quebec hospital in Sept. 28, 2020, has filed a lawsuit seeking nearly $2.7 million.

The 37-year-old Atikamekw mother of seven live streamed as a nurse and orderly were heard making derogatory comments toward her at a hospital in Joliette, northeast of Montreal.

The video of her treatment went viral in September 2020 and drew outrage and condemnation across the province and the country.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Joliette names the hospital, Dr. Jasmine Thanh, an attending doctor, and Paule Rocray, the former nurse who was caught on video hurling racial slurs at Echaquan – and seeks a total of $2.675 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

The family and the community of Manawan marked the second anniversary of her death on Wednesday with a march in her honour.

Montrealers held a vigil to also show their solidarity and call for ‘Justice for Joyce.’

Lawyer Patrick Martin-Menard says the civil suit is about moving forward and getting compensation for the family for the loss of Echaquan.

“Of course no amount of money will bring Joyce back. The goal of the compensation is to try to help…moving forward from the prejudice they’ve suffered,” Martin-Menard said.

An emotional Carol Dube, Echaquan’s husband, said he was hopeful the lawsuit would help with healing for him and those around him. “I’m still very lost,” Dube said, his voice trailing off. “This is a new chapter that’s beginning.”

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The lawsuit, which contains allegations that have not been tested in court, claims negligence on the part of the hospital management.

Many of the problems Echaquan encountered were highlighted two years earlier during testimony from Manawan community members at a provincial inquiry examining relations between Indigenous communities and the provincial government, the suit alleges, but officials did not correct the situation.

The filing also claims that Thanh failed to properly investigate and assess Echaquan’s condition and that Rocray failed to help Echaquan after she fell out of bed and instead made racist comments towards her.

A spokeswoman for the regional health board that oversees the hospital in Joliette declined to comment on the matter.

Echaquan’s mother, Diane Dube, said there’s still a lot of sadness over the video and called on Premier Francois Legault to recognize the existence of systemic racism in the province, which he has refused to do.

“It’s difficult today to live this, but we want justice for my daughter, for Joyce,” Diane Dube said through an interpreter.

Coroner Gehane Kamel concluded last year after an inquest that Echaquan’s initial diagnosis, that she was going through withdrawal from opioids or narcotics, was faulty and based on prejudice. The coroner found she wasn’t properly monitored before finally being transferred to intensive care, where she died of a pulmonary edema that was linked to a rare heart condition.

Kamel has said Echaquan would likely still be alive if she were a white woman and that systemic racism “undeniably”’ contributed to her death.

In the aftermath of her death, the Atikamekw community drafted Joyce’s Principles, a series of measures aimed at ensuring equitable access to health care for Indigenous patients and recognizing systemic racism.

Legault’s incumbent CAQ government agreed to adopt much of the document, but it does not accept the reference to systemic racism. Atikamekw leaders at Thursday’s news conference denounced that refusal.

“We need things to change and at the political level,” said Grand Chief Constant Awashish of the Conseil de la Nation Atikamekw. He said he doesn’t feel his people’s concerns are being heard.

Legault this month apologized to Echaquan’s husband after saying during a televised leaders debate that the racism situation at the hospital in Joliette was “settled.”

“Before this tragic event, things that should have changed did not change,” Carol Dube said Thursday. “We’re still waiting.”