Citation

Shaheen-Hussain S, Lombard A, Basile S. Lancet 2023; 401(10390): 1763-1765.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01007-3

PMID

37244682

Abstract

On Sept 28, 2020, just moments before her death, 37-year-old Joyce Echaquan sent a message to her family via Facebook Live, expressing her distress about treatment administered by hospital staff at an emergency department in Joliette, QC, Canada. She had been admitted there a few days earlier with severe abdominal pain. Echaquan was entitled to respectful, dignified care. Instead, capturing health-care workers treating her disdainfully with slurs and taunts based on degrading stereotypes of Indigenous women, Echaquan's live-stream video made headlines worldwide, exposing the racist and sexist violence Indigenous women face all too often in the Canadian health-care system. However, initial media coverage did not reveal the repeated discrimination Echaquan had experienced during her encounters with the medical establishment over the years.

Language: en