Salluit 4-year-old suffers months-long eye infection with no referral south

A Salluit family fears four-year-old Isaiah Tayara Saviadjuk might have lasting complications from an eye infection after struggling for two months to get adequate medical care.

“The service here is very poor,” Maggie Tayara said about the care her grandson Isaiah received at the community’s health centre, a clinic run by the Inuulitisivk Health Centre. The Puvirnituq-based health centre provides health care for all the Hudson Bay communities in Nunavik.

“They just said they did not know what to do.”

In August, Isaiah started suffering pain and swelling in his eyes. He couldn’t open them, tolerate light, or get a good night’s sleep.

“The regular cloudy daylight is too bright for him, so we have no choice but to have our curtains closed,” Isaiah’s grandparents wrote in a Sept. 30 letter to Nunatsiaq News. “When the sun comes out, his eyes hurt instantly.” 

Tayara said Isaiah would scream from the pain and needed a cool wet towel over his eyes to help with inflammation. He needed the towel changed every half-hour to keep the pain away. Isaiah was constantly yelling “fire” to describe the sensation, as if his eyes were burning.

“It was so hard,” Tayara said in an interview, “It was tiring.”

“I had to keep checking on him to see if he needed help.”

Four visits to the health centre left the family with allergy medication, Tylenol and blood tests. Isaiah was never prescribed antibiotics, Tayara said.

“They could at least send him down [south] immediately if they could not do anything about it,” she said.

Isaiah’s mother Debbie Airo decided to use a separate medical trip to Montreal on Oct. 17, funded by Inuulitsivik and related to a bone condition the four-year-old also has, to make a pitstop at an emergency room in the city. 

Seeking emergency care was “the right thing to do,” because Isaiah was in serious need of help, Tayara said the doctor told her.

The boy was referred to an eye doctor, who diagnosed both an allergic reaction and eye infection, and started Isaiah on antibiotic and allergy treatment.

Isaiah Tayara Saviadjuk on Oct. 22, after receiving care from an eye doctor in Montreal. (Photo courtesy of Maggie Tayara)

Isaiah was given multiple eye drops, which has had an immediate effect on his condition, Tayara said. For the first time in weeks, he had a full night of sleep. 

But the family fears the infection may have permanently damaged the boy’s eyes. The eye doctor has scheduled Isaiah for subsequent visits and warned there is a possibility he might now need to wear glasses.

Inuulitsivik Health Centre senior adviser Juliette Rolland said she understood the family’s concerns but suggested they might have overlooked a “valuable resource available to them.”

The health centre’s quality of service and complaint commissioner independently reviews services Inuulitsivik provides, Rolland said in an email to Nunatsiaq News, sent before Isaiah and his mother travelled to Montreal.

“He also holds the power to recommend actions based on his findings,” Rolland said, adding that could have been the most effective way for the family to have their concerns heard and properly addressed.

In the grandparents’ statement, they said many Inuit are treated only with Tylenol as a “magic medication.”

His grandparents added that the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement gives Inuit the right to receive free medical treatment, but that “Inuit are too expensive” to receive adequate care.

Tayara said she is calling on Inuulitsivik Health Centre to “make an extra effort to address these issues” and provide better treatment.

Isaiah’s next medical appointment was set for Oct. 24.