Indigenous mom dies after being denied medical travel

0:00Hey, I'm Vanessa, and I'm a producer on Q with Tom Power. We connect you with artists who've lived extraordinary lives and have some pretty interesting things to say about being human. Take the violinist Vijay Gupta. He was this child prodigy who played Carnegie Hall when he was eight. But then he started asking himself, is being great at something worth it if you can't do it with joy? I really love this episode, I think you will too. He's on Q with Tom Power, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. A month ago Miranda Mamacwa was alive. The mother of three lived in Fort Seventh First Nation on the shore of Hudson's Bay in Northern Ontario. But she was frustrated and not well. Miranda was recovering from the open heart surgery she'd flown south to Ottawa for in the spring. She couldn't go to any of the follow-up appointments. Her doctors ordered for her because her requests to the federal agency that funds this kind of

1:03travel were denied. Then last week she got so sick she was flown to Thunder Bay, Ontario for emergency care. She died last Tuesday. Her family and indigenous leaders are demanding answers from Ottawa and change. Alvin Fiddler is Grand Chief of the Nishnabi Aski Nation. He's been helping Miranda's family and he is in Thunder Bay. Good morning, Grand Chief Fiddler. Good morning. How is Miranda's death being felt by you and your community? It's pretty devastating. We had a service for Miranda here in Thunder Bay yesterday with family and some of the community members that had traveled to Thunder Bay and was transported back home to Fort Seventh last week. She will be buried later on in the softening of Fort Seventh. Can you tell me what happened to Miranda? She was just 31 years old and had this very serious operation in April. That happened to not.

2:03Tell me about that surgery. What was it for? Yeah. Just getting some information from her mother, Eva, that Miranda had been, had been now and they discovered that she needed to have some serious heart surgery done to her at which happened on April 23rd in Ottawa. After her surgery, she was in Ottawa at the hospital there for two weeks and was transported back to Thunder Bay and she was here for another two weeks at the Thunder Bay Regional Hospital and after that was able to go home. First or second week in May, but required follow-up care. They were a number of appointments that were booked for her by her medical team starting and I think the first one was on May the 28th, I didn't mean it.

3:05Then another one on June 11th, July 12th and August 6th. That she never got to any of those appointments because her travel was not approved or not arranged. And she sought that funding for travel and accommodation from the Federal Non-Insurance Health Benefits Program. That's an agency of Indigenous Services Canada. Do you know why her travel, her accommodation was denied? Why did that happen? We don't know and that's why the family is demanding for a full investigation and to their daughter's death and to find out who made those decisions and why. She wrote a post on Facebook on August 19th about being turned down for her travel and missing those appointments and she wrote in part, if I die, please go after them. How frustrated do you believe Miranda was? And I know you did meet with her at some point before she passed away and we'll talk about that. But what was she feeling in those moments?

4:08I'm sure that when she made that post back in August of that, I'm sure she knew that with every misdeployment, with every denial that the risk of her dying was becoming greater and greater. And I believe that's why she wrote that message. On Labor Day weekend, you actually got a call from Miranda's mom. What did she want you to do? What did she say? Well, she had, she just called to tell me about what happened to her daughter that she was and she went into medical distress the day before at their home in Fort Severin and it was transported to Thunder Bay. But none of the family members were able to travel with her and she was alone here at the ICU and she wanted me to go and see her daughter. And you did do that and so tell me what that was like. That was pretty, pretty heartbreaking to see her in that condition, just to see her

5:11alone in the room at the ICU at the Thunder Bay Regional Hospital and knowing that she had made attempts to seek medical help starting in May in June and she never got it. And she ended up going for emergency care in Thunder Bay and so was she able to speak to you at that time? No, she was unconscious the whole time. Did her family ever make it down before she passed away? Yeah, they did. They were able to travel to Thunder Bay that Monday evening and they met with Miranda's medical team. I choose the morning to get a briefing on Miranda's condition and then they had to make the hard breaking decision to disconnect from life support later that afternoon and she was pronounced deceased around four o'clock on Tuesday afternoon.

6:13Had she gone to those appointments, do you think doctors would have caught whatever was the reason she passed away? For sure. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt about that. If she had been properly assessed, if they had found any problems with Miranda, I'm sure they would have been able to treat her. Is this something that you've heard happening before that someone has denied transportation, medical, transit and as a result, they suffer or perhaps pass away? Yeah, I mean, it's all through a common. And just a quick story about another case that happened. That was brought to my attention after Miranda passed away, a young mother in Sandy Lake who was also a heart patient, had an appointment in Toronto on the Monday, but on that Friday her travel was still not approved and not arranged. So I called some senior officials that I see and they jumped on her way.

7:16You know, they were able to arrange her travel within the hour. And I'm glad for that that family, but there's many other individuals out there that are on the line every day trying to get hold of someone from non-insured and they're not getting anybody to answer their call and that's becoming all too common. What kinds of conversations have you had with the officials who managed that program after all of this? Well, I did read the statement that was issued by the IEC minister, Mandy Gomez, the couple of these after Miranda's death. And she had said in her statement that she was willing to meet with Nishinaa Baskination and with the Swolecoge First Nations Sold Authority. But I believe her words were at the earliest convenience, but the meeting hasn't happened yet.

8:16I don't know where she is in terms of the timing for this meeting, but now we're over a week after Miranda's tragic death and that we haven't had any official contact with anyone from IEC. You know, we did receive a statement from Indigenous Services Canada saying they hold meetings with First Nations organizations regularly to get feedback and that as you've mentioned a joint national review is underway led by the assembly of First Nations in collaboration with the federal government. Are you aware of this joint national review being underway? Yeah, I mean, we've heard about this national review for the last 20 years and so far there has been no changes that we're seeing on the ground. And I believe that's why the Chiefs of Nishinaa Baskination are now demanding for an immediate meeting with the IEC minister and to seek some concrete sustainable long-term solutions to not ensure so that we don't lose any more of our people.

9:20What do you think's gone wrong with this system because it's been an effect for many years, of course. And so why is it failing in the way that you're describing? Yeah, it's everything. You know, we've always known that there is a two-tiered health system in the country. You know, there's one for the general public and then there's one for the First Nations people of this country and that's what we're seeing playing on the ground with Dawn and Sherry. But there is no, not enough money dedicated to this program to ensure that our people get the treatment that they need when they need it. What do you want to hear from the minister? I know you said it. She mentioned it was at the earliest convenience, but if you were to get that meeting today, what would you ask where would you want to hear? I think just the willingness to sit down with would be a good start. And is there a way in your mind that the problem can be solved? It doesn't come to this that we've seen in Miranda's case. Well, I think that's part of the work that we've been doing the last few years is to

10:24look at how do we transform health and health care in our region. How do we allow our communities to begin to take over some of these programs and services that they're currently being subject to and we know that they are severely underfunded and how do we begin to take ownership of our own health? Miranda leaves behind three children, young children. What do you know of how her family is coping right now? I saw them yesterday before they left for home to for several and I just hope and pray that they're going to be okay. That's who is going to look after them and I know with the grandmother, the grandfather will do their absolute best to look after them, but they'll need a lot of help. Okay, Alvin Fiddler, I appreciate you making time for us this morning. Thank you for this. You got's. Alvin Fiddler is Grand Chief of the Nishnabi Aski Nation.

11:24You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.