Grieving Nunavik man tells commission a misdiagnosis led to wife’s death

Inukjuak hunters butcher a beluga whale outside the Hudson coast community in 2016. An Inukjuak family testified at Viens commission hearings in Kuujjuaraapik last week about the death of their wife and mother, who died from botulism poisoning from beluga meat in 2017. The family said health care staff ignored her symptoms. (FILE PHOTO)

A Nunavik man said the death of his wife could have been avoided if health care workers had taken her symptoms seriously.

Jobie Kasudluak and his daughter, Janice Kasudluak, testified on Nov. 15 at the Viens commission, which hosted hearings in Kuujjuaraapik this past week.

Eva Kullula-Ookpik, 54, of Inukjuak died of botulism poisoning in June 2017 after eating dried beluga meat.

Botulism is a rare but serious illness caused by a toxin that affects the nervous system and can cause paralysis and, in serious cases, death.

But the Inuit family said staff at the local health centre did not diagnose Kullula-Ookpik’s symptoms—nor those of her daughter Janice—as botulism, and sent the woman home.

Her husband told the commission that Kullula-Ookpik had gone to the health centre on June 6 and on June 7 to report symptoms similar to food poisoning.

The nurse who treated her was new to the job, Kasudluak said, and was getting instructions over the phone from a doctor.

“The nurse said everything seems OK. But I don’t understand how she could say that,” Kasudluak told the hearings, in audio provided by CBC.

“[Eva] was struggling to breathe. She couldn’t keep her eyes open—when she opened them, it was too bright. She was having dizzy spells. She was gagging and all that.”

The nurse took a blood sample to send to Puvirnituq for testing, noting it would take another five days to get a result back.

Kasudluak said his wife asked to be admitted to the health centre overnight, but was told nurses needed the space for emergencies.

The couple returned home at about 1 a.m. on June 8.

Just before 6 a.m. that morning, Kasudluak said he found Kullula-Ookpik in the bathtub.

“I went to touch her,” he said. “I shook her a bit, was talking to her. She never answered.”

Kasudluak called the health centre and had an ambulance come to get Kullula-Ookpik. She was declared dead an hour later.

Edith-Farah Elassal, a lawyer with the Quebec inquiry, asked Kasudluak if he thought his wife would have received different treatment had she been white.

“That person would have been on a medevac in an hour or so, because I’ve seen it with teachers and other white people in town,” he responded.

Kasudluak’s daughter, Janice, and her own two-year-old daughter each had similar symptoms and at that point, the two were medevaced to Puvirnituq and Montreal for treatment. Both survived.

“I just hope that nobody goes through that—what we went through,” a tearful Kasudluak said in his testimony.

“I lost my best friend, and I almost lost my daughter.”

The Quebec commission is looking at how Indigenous groups interact with six public services—health, social services, correctional services, justice, youth protection and policing—in hearings chaired by former Quebec Superior Court Justice Jacques Viens.

Once the commission wraps up at the end of the month, Viens will be tasked with making recommendations to the Quebec government on how to eliminate discriminatory practices.

Check back to Nunatsiaq.com for more coverage of the inquiry, as the commission hosts its final week of hearings in Kuujjuaq, Nov. 19 to Nov. 23.