The Saddening Death of Joyce Echaquan

While driving to school a couple of months ago Newstalk 1010 was playing, they were discussing the horrendous situation Joyce Echaquan, an indigenous woman, faced before her unfortunate death. I was genuinely appalled at what happened and couldn’t believe something like this took place in 2020! What originally happened was that Joyce went to a hospital in Joliette, Quebec, just 50km north of Montreal, due to stomach pains. After staying there for a while, she felt as if she had been given too much morphine which would negatively affect her as she had a history of heart-related problems. She decided to broadcast a Facebook live to show the injustice she was facing. The video starts off with her calling for help multiple times because she was in pain. At first, no one comes to her aid but then two female voices are heard, who turn out to be nurses at the hospital. However, they do not aid Joyce, instead, they make racist and condescending remarks. For example, they stated that she is only good for sex and that she would be better off dead. They also commented on her life decisions and swore at her multiple times. Sadly, Joyce passed away a few moments later but fortunately, the video went viral and reached the Quebec government. Eventually, the Quebec Premier announced that one of the nurses was fired but, he refused to admit that the cause of this was due to systemic racism and inequity in the healthcare system. Joyce’s devastating death sparked anger among indigenous and non-indigenous people which caused protests to arise. While I was listening to this story in the car, I was in utter disbelief. I had no idea people could ever deny somebody healthcare services because of their ethnicity and culture. I was even more shocked when the Premier himself stated that systemic racism was not the cause of Joyce’s death. People need to be taught not to ignore the issue but face it so something like this never happens again.