Juliette Tapaquon’s tragic story exposes health-care inequality – National Observer

June 2nd 2023

Juliette Tapaquon spent her final months in unimaginable pain. It’s the thought that still keeps her mother, Joyce Tapaquon, up at night.

A cervical cancer patient at Pasqua Hospital’s palliative care unit and a member of Carry the Kettle First Nation, Juliette was escorted out of the southern Saskatchewan hospital by police months before her death after texting to her home care nurse, whom she considered a friend, that she would “slap the bitch,” referring to her pain specialist. Leading up to the text, she’d felt the doctor had belittled her during an assessment and, on several occasions, hadn’t managed her pain.

According to the health authority’s internal report on the incident, the doctor called police because she perceived herself at substantial risk due to the text.

Read More: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/06/02/investigations/juliette-tapaquon-tragic-story-indigenous-health-care-inequality