Joyce Echaquan, and what her name asks of us

On September 28, 2020, Joyce Echaquan, an Atikamekw woman from Manawan, died at the Joliette hospital after livestreaming insults from staff members. In her report of October 1, 2021, coroner Géhane Kamel concluded that the racism and prejudice she endured "certainly contributed to her death."

On November 16, 2020, the Council of the Atikamekw of Manawan and the Atikamekw Nation Council tabled Joyce's Principle: guaranteeing all Indigenous people equitable access, without discrimination, to social and health services. As of September 2026, the Government of Quebec has still not adopted it.

This is not an isolated case. In British Columbia, the In Plain Sight report (2020) found that 84% of Indigenous respondents said they had experienced discrimination in health care. In the United States, a study published in PNAS in 2016 showed that half of 222 white medical students and residents believed at least one myth about biological differences between Black and white people. Those students rated a Black patient's pain lower.

History weighs too: from 1932 to 1972, the Tuskegee study followed 600 Black men, 399 of them with syphilis, without offering them real treatment. President Clinton offered an official apology on May 16, 1997. Naming these wounds is the first step toward caring differently.