Two nurses at a Canadian hospital have been suspended without pay for mocking an indigenous patient.
The two medical staff at Lanaudière Hospital Center in Joliette, Quebec subjected the woman, who has not been named, to “intimidation, mockery and harassment”.
They allegedly compared the patient to another indigenous patient, Joyce Echaquan who died at the same hospital back in September after filming staff cruelly taunting her as “stupid” as she lay writhing in agony, sparking national outrage when the video went viral.
“Another situation where an Atikamekw woman… was the subject of intimidation, mockery and harassment,” the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador, Ghislain Picard, wrote in a statement.
“In the city of Joliette of all places! You would think they would have learned their lessons on how they treat indigenous peoples! The staff from this clinic saw her name and told her ‘I think we’ll just call you Joyce”.
In a statement, the regional health authority in Joliette said it was investigating “discriminatory and racist remarks” made against a member of the Atikamekw community.
Echaquan’s death triggered outrage in Canada after staff at Joliette hospital in Quebec were caught on camera calling her ‘stupid’ as she writhes in pain, moments before her death.
Echaquan, a member of the Atikamekw Indigenous tribe, used her phone to livestream the nurses’ remarks on Facebook and they were later broadcast on a Canadian television network CBC.
The mother-of-seven was admitted to Joliette hospital in Quebec last September with stomach pains. The phone footage captured a nurse saying: “Are you done acting stupid? Are you done?”
