Inquest into death of Nunavut baby set for November

Nunavut’s Office of the Chief Coroner has announced the dates of a November inquest to look into the death of Makibi Timilak Akesuk, to be hosted in Cape Dorset Nov. 22-25. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut’s Office of the Chief Coroner has announced the dates of a November inquest to look into the death of Makibi Timilak Akesuk, the three-month-old Cape Dorset baby who died in April 2012.

That inquest will take place in Cape Dorset from Nov. 22 to Nov. 25 and be presided over by the Yellowknife-based coroner Garth Eggenberger, the coroner’s office said Sept. 8.

The infant’s death made headlines in 2014 when a CBC investigative piece alleged the three-month-old died of a treatable lung infection.

The same story alleged that a local on-call nurse, Debbie McKeown, told Makibi’s parents over the phone to bathe the sick child instead of bringing him into the health centre—this just hours before the baby’s death, and despite a territorial policy that says all infants must be seen in person when presenting those symptoms.

At the time, Nunavut’s chief coroner Padma Suramala determined the cause of Makibi’s death to be sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.

An autopsy later found that a viral infection in both lungs caused his death, but the parents of the infant said they weren’t informed about the change in diagnosis until over a year later.

In February 2016, Nunavut’s minister of justice called on the coroner’s office to launch an inquest into the baby’s death.

The inquest will seek to identify the details of the Makibi’s death; where and when it happened, the cause and the circumstances under which the death occurred.

A jury presiding over the inquest will make recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths.