MONTREAL -- The family of a woman who died in a Montreal-area hospital last month wants a coroner to investigate after troubling circumstances of her death came to light in a published report.
Candida Macarine, 86, was admitted to Lakeshore General Hospital on the night of Feb. 26 due to respiratory distress, and her family says she died several hours later from cardiac arrest.
But the family wants answers after connecting the dots between the timing of their mother's death and a CBC report that an elderly woman was found dead on the floor of an isolation room in the hospital's emergency room on Feb. 27.
The family says the hospital has told them it launched an internal probe but has refused to even confirm the family's suspicion that Macarine was the patient found on the floor. They learned of the details the day before her funeral in early March.
"The night before her funeral we found out something else," said her son, Emmanuel Macarine.
Placido Macarine, one of Candida Macarine's sons, told a news conference Monday the family at first was at peace with her death but they now want transparency and will ask the Quebec coroner's office to get involved.
"Is it because we are Asians that they just put us aside and we're not worthy of their attention? This is racism. I took it like that," he said.
Fo Niemi, executive director of a Montreal-based civil rights group supporting the family, notes Candida Macarine was Filipina and that there have been several questionable recent incidents in Quebec health-care facilities involving racialized or Indigenous women.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 22, 2021. With files from CTV News Montreal.
