Indigenous leaders call for change in Sask. health care after woman's death during childbirth | CBC News

Chelsea Bear's family says she was sent home from hospital without proper care

First Nations leaders say a declining health-care system and systemic racism within that system both contributed to a mother's death from complications during the birth of her twins.

"No matter where you are in life, you should have fair and equitable treatment. Everybody should be treated the same," Meadow Lake Tribal Council vice-chief Richard Derocher said on Tuesday, speaking alongside the family of Chelsea Bear at a news conference in Saskatoon.

Bear, a member of Flying Dust First Nation, went to hospital on Aug. 10 in Meadow Lake, in pain and bleeding, but was sent home without receiving proper care, her family said. She was 36 weeks pregnant and her pregnancy was considered high-risk.

The next day, the pain and bleeding increased severely, and Bear returned to the hospital. She was ultimately taken to Saskatoon, where the first twin was delivered stillborn and the second baby was born very weak, her family said.

Bear died after their deliveries, in the early hours of Aug. 12. She was 36 years old and left behind four other children, in addition to the surviving twin, Gracie, who is still in the neonatal intensive care unit in Saskatoon.

Her family said she died from hemorrhaging blood due to placental abruption — which is when the placenta separates too early from the uterus.

They said that if Bear would have received proper care when she first went to hospital, she and both her babies would still be alive.

"She must have been so scared, I was thinking, just losing all the blood.… It must have hurt her," Chelsea's mother Deb Bear said at a news conference Tuesday in Saskatoon. 

Bear's family is the second Indigenous family to speak out and call for change after the death of a mother during childbirth in Saskatchewan this year.

Family seeks answers after Indigenous mother dies in delivery room at Saskatoon hospital

Jaali Sutherland-Weenie, from Beardy's & Okemasis Cree Nation, died on April 26 after first going to the hospital in Rosthern with severe back pain and vomiting, then being sent to Saskatoon. Her family said she was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a blood pressure condition. Her baby girl survived.