'I told her often I loved her,' Joyce Echaquan's husband tells inquest into her death at Quebec hospital
WARNING: This article contains details that may be disturbing to some readers
Even as she lay dying, Joyce Echaquan was kept tied to her hospital bed by her ankles and wrists, her eldest daughter testified at a Quebec coroner's inquest Thursday.
"She was still restrained," Wasianna Echaquan Dubé told the inquest. "Even as she was dead, she was still restrained — in a small room — she was still restrained."
On Sept. 28, 2020, Echaquan filmed her final moments at the Centre hospitalier régional de Lanaudière in Joliette, Que., writhing in pain as staff hurled racist insults at her. The footage sparked cries for justice across the province.
A three-week coroner's inquest into the death of the 37-year-old Atikamekw woman got underway at the Trois-Rivières courthouse Thursday, where Quebec Coroner Géhane Kamel heard testimony from provincial police, as well as Echaquan's husband, mother and daughter.
Echaquan hesitant to seek care, family says
Echaquan's husband, Carol Dubé, testified that his wife avoided going to the Joliette hospital because of several incidents she had suffered there in recent years.
Dubé said his wife had heart issues, as well as diabetes and blood pressure problems, so she had appointments at the hospital at least once a month.
He described an incident that he said occurred around 2017, when he said Echaquan was pinched by a nurse and got a bruise from it. He said she told the other nurses that she had been pinched, but they did not believe her. He said hospital staff and security intercepted the couple and gave Echaquan a sedative, and that the hospital then called the police.
Dubé said his wife was also forced to have three abortions at the hospital because the pregnancies were too risky, but that hospital staff then refused to give the fetuses to the couple for burial — something he said took a major toll on the family.
After her last pregnancy, Dubé said his wife was pressured by the attending physician into undergoing tubal ligation, a surgical procedure that prevents pregnancy. He says it was a procedure his wife did not want and later regretted.
In the week leading up to her death, Echaquan's family says she was suffering from stomach pains, and sometimes threw up blood when eating.
Still, she was hesitant to go to the hospital, afraid they would only give her painkillers, and scared they would give her empracet — a type of painkiller she was allergic to.
WATCH | Joyce Echaquan's husband testifies at inquiry into her death in hospital:
Eventually, the pain became unbearable and Dubé called an ambulance.
In text messages to her husband displayed in the court, Echaquan said her stomach was bleeding internally. She was expected to undergo a scan and a colonoscopy to figure out what was wrong.
Video posted to Facebook
Dubé said it was one of his children who alerted him to the Facebook live video Echaquan had filmed and posted on the morning of Sept. 28. He was disturbed by what he saw and frantically tried to reach hospital staff to find out what was going on, but he says no one would answer his questions.
It wasn't until late that evening that he was finally informed of his wife's death.
Meanwhile, Wasianna Echaquan Dubé, the couple's 20-year-old daughter, was already in Joliette and rushed to her mother's side when the video was posted.
"When I entered the room, I already had the feeling she was gone," Echaquan Dubé told the coroner.
She described watching as hospital staff tried to resuscitate her mother — who was restrained to her bed the entire time.
The next morning, Echaquan's husband said a doctor told him there would be no autopsy because it was a natural death and informed him that his wife had been intubated, meaning a tube had been inserted into her airway to help her breathe, but that the bleeding only got worse.
Dubé testified that the doctor seemed nervous throughout this encounter and did not look him in the eye.
Sûreté du Québec Sargeant Martin Pichette testified that the Facebook live video had not been saved, and said it was therefore impossible to determine if hospital staff had deleted it intentionally.
However, Pichette did say it was a staff member who had stopped the recording. No criminal charges were laid.
'I told her often that I loved her'
Fighting back tears in the courtroom Dubé described his wife as a friendly, kind and beautiful woman who loved her seven children and who was always there for them.
He said she loved nature and prayed for her children and family every day.
"I told her often that I loved her. We promised to say it to each other every day," said Dubé, who was with Echaquan for 23 years.
"She was so, so beautiful in my eyes. She became even more so when she became a mother."
Echaquan's daughter says she has still not found any comfort after her mother's death. She says she misses her mother every day and browses old videos on social media just to hear the sound of her voice again.
"You won't get to see my children grow up, my little miracles as they say — they won't have their kokum," Echaquan Dubé said.
Family, friends to testify tomorrow
Several more members of Echaquan's family are expected to testify on Friday, the second day of the inquest, including her brother.
The coroner's role, and the purpose of the inquest, is not to assign blame in the death, but to further understand the circumstances leading up to it and to form recommendations.
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