THUNDER BAY — An inquest has begun into the death of a Kingfisher Lake First Nation woman.
Ruthann Quequish died at her home on April 1, 2017, after visiting her local nursing station multiple times prior to her death.
The medical cause of her death was ketoacidosis due to untreated diabetes. The discretionary inquest was approved at the request of the decedent's family.
During the opening proceedings, the presiding officer, Dr. Michael Wilson, explained to the jurors their role and the court's expectations of them.
He made it clear that the jury's responsibility is not to assign blame or find fault but to confirm five questions related to the case.
Jurors are to confirm the identity of the deceased, confirm the date of death and where, confirm the medical cause of death and categorize it. The classification would be one of the following: natural causes, accident, homicide, suicide or undetermined.
After initial introductions, the proceedings started with a song and smudge from Ruthann's brother, Jordan and his partner Reena Larabee.
The chief of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, Eddie Mamakwa spoke to the court and so did Ruthann's cousin and her partner, both of whom offered a religious prayer to the room in honour of Ruthann.
During a break in proceedings, the decedent's brother, Jordan, said he feels emotional right now.
"It's really good to see the support, but we also know there are so many people thinking about us today.
"I actually just got a message saying 'prayers to you and your family, we're there with you in spirit with spirit.' That's awesome. That's good to hear that they're here with us in spirit."
Jordan said it's important for Ruthann's children to hear and understand what happened to her. He said he wants Ruthann's children to have closure and be able to stand strong later on.
"The one thing that is breaking today is our treaty rights, the agreement that was made between our people. One of the things was to have a good health-care system. 'Now we will take care of you guys,' and when they say that to our people, we really take that to heart," said Jordan.
"A lot of it is being broken today. Things are slowly fading away what was said to amongst our people, and I really hope things will really change and people will work together."
NDP MPP Sol Mamawka's riding includes Kingfisher Lake First Nation.
He said the unnecessary suffering and needless deaths are because of a "jurisdictional black hole of services."
"I think when we talk about those, then that's the result of it. We hope to see some recommendations that will come out in the name of Ruthann Quequish. The family also outlined that that's what they're looking for."
Mamakwa noted that on-reserve nursing stations are run by the federal government.
"There is a health-care crisis and we need to be able to have better communications between both the provincial system and also the federal system, which continues to be underfunded.
"For example, the physician services and also the medevac services, ORNGE, is the provincial system and the rest is federal — and then I think sometimes, that jurisdictional black hole of services, sometimes people fall through the cracks and that's what happened with Ruthann Quequish.
"The nurses are not given the tools and the training to be able to provide that good service, and we need to invest in that training and making sure that we have the better tools for the nurses that are up there because they work hard."
Mamakwa said that physician services also need more resources.
Ruthann left behind three children, who are in the care of her mother.
The inquest is scheduled for three weeks and will have approximately 20 witnesses.
The proceedings will be streamed live in English, as well have a live Oji-Cree interpreter providing translations.
