Ojibway chief slams treatment of teenage girl at Kenora hospital

Warning : This article contains references to self-harm.

The situation was denounced on Twitter by Jeff Copenace, Chief of the Ojibwe First Nation of Onigaming, who had been called by the girl’s family.

He traveled the 116 km that separated him from the Kenora hospital to defend the interests of the teenager.

Mr Copenace, who arrived at the ER more than 30 minutes after the girl, says ER nurses failed to care for her as she suffered a major auto injury inflicted.

I was panickedconfides Mr. Copenace. I asked [à l’infirmière]”Do you know she’s 13? Do you know she self-harmed?”

A second nurse would then have given him a dressing and told him to bandage the wound himself.

I was shocked to see that [la jeune fille] sat there with an open wound without even a social worker talking to her or someone rushing to help heradded Mr. Copenace in an interview with The Canadian News.

” If it had been a young white girl, the whole hospital would have rushed to her, believes the chief of the Ojibwe First Nation of Onigamin. They would never have left a young white child with an open wound that required eight stitches. »

Mr. Copenace is all the more distressed, because the hospital is aware that the community is currently experiencing a crisis of mental health and suicides.

He adds that the girl is back home and is doing well now.

CBC could not independently confirm the First Nation’s claims.

The incident came months after a 32-year-old Aboriginal man died of a brain haemorrhage hours after being given headache pills after being discharged from the same hospital.

The impact of systemic racism on the health of Indigenous peoples has caused a lot of ink to flow in Canada since the death of Joyce Echaquan at the Joliette hospital in September 2020.

The lack of manpower in hospitals is also an issue that regularly makes the headlines.

The hospital fights back

Ray Racette, CEO of Lake of the Woods District Hospital, says an investigation was launched as soon as he saw Jeff Copenace’s tweet, posted the same day as the incident.

He says that the investigation indicates for the moment that the girl was treated in less than an hour, and that she was discharged from the hospital after less than 5:30 am.

Mr. Racette adds that the lack of personnel has an influence on wait times.

” We are understaffed. We have an absence rate of 40% of staff [du service des urgences]which in itself is very difficult for staff who are simply trying to do the best job possible. »

Hospital administration has a different interpretation of what happened in the emergency room, Racette said, adding that he wants to take the time to chat with Jeff Copenace.

We would really like to meet him because we respect him and we want to have an exchange with himMr. Racette said, adding that social media can be a very blunt instrument which can damage their reputation and their relations with the natives.

With information from CBC’s Logan Turner