WARNING: This story contains details about death in childbirth.
First Nations leaders say a declining health-care system and systemic racism within that system both contributed to a mother’s death from complications during the birth of her twins.
“No matter where you are in life, you should have fair and equitable treatment. Everybody should be treated the same,” Meadow Lake Tribal Council vice-chief Richard Derocher said on Tuesday, speaking alongside the family of Chelsea Bear at a news conference in Saskatoon.
Bear, a member of Flying Dust First Nation, went to hospital on Aug. 10 in Meadow Lake, in pain and bleeding, but was sent home without receiving proper care, her family said. She was 36 weeks pregnant and her pregnancy was considered high-risk.
The next day, the pain and bleeding increased severely, and Bear returned to the hospital. She was ultimately taken to Saskatoon, where the first twin was delivered stillborn and the second baby was born very weak, her family said.
Bear died after their deliveries, in the early hours of Aug. 12. She was 36 years old and left behind four other children, in addition to the surviving twin, Gracie, who is still in the neonatal intensive care unit in Saskatoon.
Her family said she died from hemorrhaging blood due to placental abruption — which is when the placenta separates too early from the uterus.
They said that if Bear would have received proper care when she first went to hospital, she and both her babies would still be alive.
“She must have been so scared, I was thinking, just losing all the blood.… It must have hurt her,” Chelsea’s mother Deb Bear said at a news conference Tuesday in Saskatoon.
“I just don’t want this ever to happen to anybody else.”
Bear’s family is the second Indigenous family to speak out and call for change after the death of a mother during childbirth in Saskatchewan this year.
Jaali Sutherland-Weenie, from Beardy’s & Okemasis Cree Nation, died on April 26 after first going to the hospital in Rosthern with severe back pain and vomiting, then being sent to Saskatoon. Her family said she was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a blood pressure condition. Her baby girl survived.
Sutherland-Weenie’s family said they believed she would have been treated differently if she were not Indigenous.
Systemic racism alleged
On Tuesday, near the end of a lengthy news conference, Derocher said that speaking about Bear’s death is complicated “because of all the things that are not being said” when people are “trying to be as nice as possible.”
He and Meadow Lake Tribal Council Tribal Chief Jeremy Norman both said they were on a conference call with representatives of the Saskatchewan Health Authority that took place after MLTC reached out to them about Bear’s death.
They said they expressed frustration that they weren’t getting answers and told the SHA they were considering holding a news conference.
Norman said an SHA representative “basically told us, keep quiet, because it’s so hard to get doctors in our region, it’s so hard to get people to come and work in the north.”
Derocher said those words “burnt me hard,” and are another example of the systemic racism that happens every day, when First Nations people are asked “to keep silent, do not speak of this issue, do not bring it forth.”
He and the other chiefs also spoke about how they have seen the quality of health care declining for everyone in Saskatchewan over the past two decades — in everything from hospital care to long-term care — and how they want to work with the province to make positive changes.
SHA to conduct patient safety review
The SHA declined an interview request, but issued a statement extending their condolences to the family and community for the “profound and tragic loss.”
The statement didn’t directly answer a question about Norman and Derocher’s account of the conference call where they said they were asked to keep quiet. The statement said the SHA met with the MLTC to hear their concerns, but at the time of the meeting, “the SHA had not received consent from the family to discuss the specifics of their case with MLTC.”
“We have since received the family’s consent and will continue our discussions with MLTC in the coming days,” the SHA’s statement said.
The health authority said it would be conducting a thorough patient safety review.
“The SHA acknowledges the complex and dynamic conditions that our maternal health and obstetrical clinical teams operate within, and appreciate their commitment, clinical expertise and professionalism.”
Independent investigation called for
The MLTC chiefs and Flying Dust First Nation Chief Tyson Bear are calling for more than a patient safety review.
“We are calling for a thorough, independent, transparent investigation, so Chelsea’s family can get the answers they deserve,” Chief Bear said.
Chelsea Bear’s death was not an isolated incident in the health-care system, the chiefs said.
In a news release, they highlighted that it is the sixth quality-of-care incident that the Meadow Lake Tribal Council has tried to raise with the SHA this year.
“We’re here for a better health system. We’re here to make change,” Tribal Chief Norman said.
“It’s unfortunate things like this have to happen before we look at making change, before we really dig in to say, ‘What’s the problem?'”
