This column contains disturbing content.

This is a column I wish I didn’t have to write about a death that shouldn’t have happened. But it did.

The loss of a 19-year-old First Nations man in the early morning hours of Sept. 27, 2019 is a reminder of the failures in Canada’s health care system — and, more than that, of the societal inequities brought on by colonization that have led us to where we are now.

Those may seem like empty words to you, but they are the reality of First Nations people trying to get medical care.

According to Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, the man was taken to the Thunder Bay regional hospital by ambulance on the night of Sept. 26, where he was admitted at around 8 p.m. in “obvious distress.”

Three hours later, it is believed he was escorted out of the hospital by security guards. He then walked to the shipping and receiving area of Lakehead University, which is about 500 metres from the hospital entrance.

He was found there by a Lakehead security guard “hanging by his sweater,” Fiddler wrote in a letter to hospital CEO Jean Bartkowiak.

“At this time, we understand his death to be by way of a suicide. We further understand that the security guard was instructed to cut him down, and that police were not notified for some time,” Fiddler continued.

“While we await further information regarding the death, we are writing to you on a preliminary basis to find out why the hospital would escort a young man who presented at the hospital in obvious distress to a secluded area of the LU campus. Further alarming is that we have been advised that this is common practice by hospital security.”

Let that last line of Fiddler’s letter sink in: “ ... this is common practice by hospital security.” What exactly would that common practice be? Escorting First Nations people off of hospital property when they need urgent care? This is nearly too horrible to believe in the same city where seven First Nations children came to seek a high school education and died — five found dead in the city’s rivers.

“Surely,” Fiddler continued, “the hospital has procedures to support people in crisis that ensure the safety of the staff, patients, and the individual in distress. And surely this does not include walking them onto a university campus and leaving them alone to fend for themselves.”

And here comes another shocking sentence.

“We understand this to be so common, LU security guards routinely carry taxi vouchers to give to those they come across who have been ejected by the hospital.”

Hospitals are full of trained professionals who have procedures and policies in place to support people in crisis.

And, after all the attention brought on Thunder Bay, after the inquest into the deaths of the Seven Fallen Feathers and after the 145 recommendations — after all of the improvements and movements forward, the loss of another First Nations person is profoundly tragic.

An internal review of the case by the hospital “concluded that appropriate actions were taken and that the right decisions were made by clinical staff based on the information provided to them and the patient’s presentation,” spokesperson Tracie Smith told me in an email.

How totally inadequate.

An investigation is currently underway by Ontario’s chief coroner, Dirk Huyer. He told me it will look for any “potential systemic issues that may have played a role in contributing to the death — policies, procedures, steps taken.” It will also examine whether this death is part of a pattern — and make any recommendations necessary to break that pattern.

Brian Sinclair’s death resulted in an inquest that made 63 recommendations. Sinclair, a First Nations man who died of a treatable bladder infection after waiting 34 hours in a Winnipeg emergency room in September 2008, was a double amputee. Staff assumed he was either drunk or homeless while he waited at the ER, unattended, in his wheelchair.

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The death of this young man demands an inquest as well — and, if need be, a police investigation.

As Fiddler told me on Thursday, “Our youth shouldn’t have to die when seeking medical help.”

Where to get help: Canada Suicide Prevention Service (CSPS) , 1-833-456-4566; First Nations and Inuit Hope for Wellness 24/7 Help Line, 1-855-242-3310; Canadian Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line, 1-866-925-4419.

Nov. 10, 2019 — Correction: This story has been changed from a previously published version to correct the date of the death of the 19-year-old First Nations man.