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Canadian province orders judicial inquiry into Indo-Canadian Prashant Sreekumar's death in hospital ER
Videos from the family’s traumatic experience went viral globally and cast Canada’s healthcare infrastructure in a negative light.
Toronto: The Government of the province of Alberta has announced a judicial inquiry into the death of 44-year-old Indo-Canadian Prashant Sreekumar, from a cardiac arrest last month after waiting for over seven hours for treatment in a hospital.
The untimely demise of Sreekumar, an accountant and father of three, occurred on December 22 in a doctor’s office in the Grey Nun’s Community Hospital in the provincial capital of Alberta. In media interview, his wife Niharika Sreekumar said they waited for nearly seven-and-a-half hours before being called in by a doctor. Sreekumar collapsed there and passed away within minutes. Videos from the family’s traumatic experience went viral globally and cast Canada’s healthcare infrastructure in a negative light. Sreekumar went to the hospital after experiencing chest pains.
On Thursday, Matt Jones, Alberta’s Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health Services, announced that in “light of the significant and concerning circumstances” related to Sreekumar’s death, the province’s Minister of Justice “has taken the unprecedented step of ordering a fatality inquiry” which will be led by a provincial judge. In a statement, Jones said the inquiry will “examine the full circumstances of the death and issue public findings and recommendations to help prevent tragic events in the future”.
“Alberta’s government remains committed to strengthening health system capacity so emergency departments can focus on the most critical patients,” the statement added.
At a press conference, Jones said while system-level improvements were underway, a detailed, independent and public review of how the specific case was managed needed to be undertaken.
“We owe that to his family and to all Albertans,” he stressed.
The statement added since the tragedy occurred Acute Care Alberta completed a quality assurance review examining “available information to understand what occurred and identify opportunities to strengthen care” while Covenant Health, which operates the Grey Nuns Hospital where Sreekumar died, has completed its own internal review, and an independent investigation by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is underway.
In an interview to the agency Canadian Press last month, Niharika Sreekumar said, “My kids feel like their father was killed.”
At the time the incident came to light, Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith extended her condolences to the family and their loved ones.
Jones said hospital and emergency departments witnessed “high demand this winter due to seasonal respiratory illnesses” but after “significant pressure in December, early indicators” showed that the flu cases had peaked and were “trending downward, and hospital admissions are declining”.
An online fundraiser to support the family has raised over 180,000 Canadian dollars ($129, 603) as of Thursday evening.
