Two Atikamekw women from Manawan claim to have been sterilized against their will at the Lanaudière hospital in Joliette. They have just filed a request with the Superior Court to bring a collective action against the CISSS de Lanaudière and two of its former doctors on behalf of all the Atikamekw women who would have undergone such interventions without having given their free and informed consent, and this , since 1971.
“Among the serious discriminatory practices that take place at the CISSS de Lanaudière, there is a widespread phenomenon of sterilization suffered by Atikamekw women without their consent or without this consent being free and informed. This is particularly the case of the two plaintiffs, ”wrote the lawyers of the firm Dionne Schulze, who filed the application for authorization to bring a class action to the Superior Court of Quebec on October 27.
The CISSS de Lanaudière and the doctors concerned indicated in court documents filed on November 11 that they intended to contest.
Unetelle and Madame X, who are named in the document under these aliases to preserve their privacy, are both from Manawan, a small community of about 3,000 inhabitants 180 kilometers from Joliette.
On December 17, 2004, Unetelle was admitted to the Joliette hospital for her fifth delivery, scheduled by cesarean section. “At no time before the operation, Unetelle had an exchange with the DD [Yvonne Brindusa] Vasilie or any other caregiver about sterilizing surgery, ”the lawyers write.
“Despite the absence of any knowledge of the procedure envisaged and even less of Unetelle’s consent to this intervention, the defendant DD Vasilie proceeded to the installation of Filshie clips during the cesarean section. “
The doctor allegedly did not follow up afterwards and said nothing to the patient about the sterilization. It was not until a year later, when she believed she was pregnant again, that she learned that she had been sterilized. “She was in shock and did not understand why we had carried out this intervention”, specify the lawyers.
Doctor pressures
Madame X, she was followed by Dr. Richard Monday, who has since retired, according to the court document. According to the plaintiff, the doctor was “mean to her, his tone was threatening and he often made racist or derogatory remarks towards the Natives”.
The lawyers give several examples of degrading remarks that would have been made: “You are still pregnant”, “It’s time to tie yourself up”, “You have too many children”, “You must not have a home and you gotta be on the ‘bs’, ‘you natives all have drinking problems’.
According to the plaintiff, the doctor insisted that she undergo sterilizing surgery from her third pregnancy. After her fifth childbirth, in 1993, at the age of 27, she would have “yielded to the pressures” of the doctor, who “would have led her to believe […] that this operation was necessary in view of his medical or socio-economic situation ”.
The lawyers claim that the doctor performed a tubal ligation without the principal interested party having given her free and informed consent.
For the two women, sterilization had major negative effects, some of which still remain to this day: hormonal imbalances, incomprehension, guilt, feeling of humiliation, anger, fear and loss of identity as an Atikamekw woman. Today, they are both foster families for children from the community.
The stories of Unetelle and Madame X described in the proceedings resemble that of Marie, an Algonquin woman from Pikogan who told the To have to in may have been sterilized against her will in similar circumstances at Amos hospital. The show Investigation also published a report recently which reported about ten cases of aboriginal women sterilized against their will in Quebec.
Negligence of the CISSS?
The plaintiffs claim that the defendants violated “their ethical and civil obligations to inform and obtain the free and informed consent” of their patients before performing a surgical intervention, especially since it was “non-essential and non-urgent ”.
According to the plaintiffs, the CISSS de Lanaudière “knew or should have known of the existence of a widespread practice of non-consented sterilization of Atikamekw women within its establishment”, which is why the establishment is also targeted by the request.
They maintain that the CISSS de Lanaudière would have allowed, “by its actions or by its negligence”, that “wrongful acts” be committed “with complete impunity” by the medical teams, which engages “its direct civil liability”.
The two women were afraid for a long time to denounce the acts they would have suffered, in particular because of the “colonial context and the fear they more specifically feel towards the doctors and staff working at the CISSS de Lanaudière”, a phenomenon that was documented in particular in the report of the Viens commission and during the hearings of the coroner into the death of Joyce Echaquan.
“The courage of [Joyce] Echaquan allowed the members of the group to find the strength to denounce the wrongdoing suffered at the CISSS de Lanaudière ”, specify the lawyers.
The CISSS de Lanaudière declined the interview request of the To have to. “As a follow-up to your request, we will not grant an interview or comment to make at this time, considering that the case is proceeding at the judicial level”, replied by email the director of public relations of the establishment, Pascale Lamy.
Drs Monday and Vasilie did not respond to interview requests from the To have to. The allegations of the court proceedings have still not been proven and the defendants have not yet had the opportunity to present their point of view in court.