‘It was unnecessary’: Death of Indigenous mother sparks bias concerns in Ontario healthcare

The death of an Ojibway mother a year ago in Winnipeg is raising concerns over health-care bias in Ontario.

“She was this beautiful, beautiful, bright, articulate young woman. And her death is a tragedy. There’s no other way to put it. We believe it was unnecessary,” said Chief Jeff Copenace of Onigaming First Nation, three hours east of Winnipeg near Lake of the Woods.

November Kelly, 25, from Onigaming, survived a serious crash in October 2022 when she was a passenger in a car that skidded off a highway. Her mother Carrie Kelly says she was rushed to the hospital in Thunder Bay for internal bleeding.

Six days later she was sent home and for the next four months, her mother says the pain got worse.

“She felt like her insides were dying, she told me. I feel like I’m dying on the inside,” said Carrie.

November went to Fort Frances, 100 kilometres south of her First Nation, multiple times to meet with doctors but her family says the visits resulted in little relief.

“She was prescribed, Metamucil. She was also prescribed Rabeprazole. And it’s for, you know, stomach, if you have ulcers or whatever,” said Carrie.

On her final appointment, she was diagnosed with abdominal inflammation, at which point, she was sent home with medicine for nausea and pain.

The following day, on a family trip to Winnipeg for a Jets game, November was too sick to leave the hotel room – leaving her partner, Brody Allen, concerned.

“He started messaging me, her partner. ‘Can you come? I can’t wake up November. There’s something wrong with her,'” said Carrie.

November was rushed to the St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg and after receiving emergency care, a doctor delivered terrible news to her family.

They were unable to save her, said Carrie.

An autopsy later revealed November had died of a severe infection caused by a hole in her bowel, which the autopsy says was a complication from the crash four months earlier.

2:06 November Kelly: Calls for investigation into Ontario Indigenous woman’s death

Riverside Health Care, the health authority in Fort Frances told Global News an ‘event review’ is underway.

Staff for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones tell Global News she won’t comment on the matter while that review takes place.

November’s family says they’re willing to be patient as it runs its course, but it all sounds disturbingly familiar. Brian Sinclair’s 2008 death in a Winnipeg emergency room and Joyce Echaquan’s death in a Quebec hospital in 2020 sparked reviews and inquests which put systemic racism in health care, in the national spotlight.

“For months, she was suffering with her internal injuries. And the doctors didn’t probe enough to get to the bottom of it,” said November’s father, Ron Kelly Jr. “Our baby would be here if they would have listened to her.”

Carrie says she believes her daughter was a victim of racial profiling.

“It was hard for me to get her to (seek medical care) because of the way she was treated when she would go,” Carrie says. She recalls one time November felt insulted and unheard.

“She was visibly upset and I asked her, ‘What? What’s wrong?’ She said, she just got asked if she was a needle user, if she did drugs. And I was like, ‘Oh my God. Why would they ask you that?'” Carrie said.

The family has filed a complaint with the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, but Chief Copenace says he does not need another report.

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“You’re still treated like you’re just an Indian in Canada, especially by the doctors and nurses. And until that changes, we’re still going to see misdiagnosis,” he said.

It’s a statement the Indigenous Physicians Association agrees with. “There is a lot of mistrust within the health care system, and rightfully so, from First Nations, Metis and Inuit towards the health care system when things like this happen.” said Dr. Mandy Buss, who practices in Winnipeg and is president of the Association.

Buss doesn’t know November’s case specifically but is aware that anti-Indigenous bias continues in health-care systems across the country.

“We know these cases aren’t unique and we’ve heard of Brian Sinclair and Joyce Echaquan, but we don’t hear of all the hundreds and thousands of cases that happen. And sometimes they don’t lead to death, so they don’t make it to media, but they lead to harm,” Buss said.

0:36 Racism partly to blame for unequal health care provided to Indigenous women: PHAC

The Kelly family has retained Daniel Michaelson, a medical negligence lawyer from Toronto who says, “Something very wrong seemed to have happened here. Medical care is a fundamental right shared by every single person and it needs to be better. So where does this case rank? I’d say, how about as low as I can think?”

The process for answers and accountability has been started but November’s parents still grieve, her toddler will never know his mom and her little girl still struggles to understand why this all happened.