Coroner's inquest into death of Cynthia Blackjack set for January
Yukon First Nation says 'systemic racism' may have been a factor in Blackjack's 2013 death
A coroner's inquest into the 2013 death of Carmacks, Yukon, resident Cynthia Blackjack has been set for January.
The inquest is scheduled to happen over 10 days, between January 20 and 31, 2020. Yukon Territorial Court Judge Peter Chisholm has been appointed coroner for the inquest.
Blackjack was 29 years old when she died during an approximately 150-kilometre medevac flight to Whitehorse, in November 2013.
Yukon's former chief coroner, Kirsten Macdonald, refused requests from Blackjack's family and the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation for an inquest. The First Nation argued the coroner's original investigation was inadequate, and did not address "systemic racism" as a potential factor in Blackjack's death.
The Yukon Supreme Court agreed, and ordered an inquest. The coroner appealed, but the earlier court decision was upheld.
The Yukon Court of Appeal found that in the days before she died, Blackjack had been in frequent contact with the Carmacks Health Centre complaining of abdominal pain. The day before she died, Blackjack was told by the health centre in Carmacks to go to the Whitehorse hospital — a two hour drive away — and that she would have to find her own way there.
The next day, Blackjack's condition worsened, but there was a delay in getting an ambulance to bring her back to the Carmacks Health Centre and then another delay in getting her on a medevac flight to Whitehorse.
The cause of her death was later determined to be liver failure.
The Yukon appeal court ruled that the problems with the ambulance service alone justified holding an inquest.
"This is particularly apparent given her [Blackjack's] possible vulnerability as a First Nation citizen and the nature of the care she received in the period preceding her death, regardless of whether a causal link was established between those circumstances and the medical cause of her death," the 2018 appeal court judgment says.
No other details about the upcoming inquest have been released.