Whitehorse Emergency Shelter staff not trained for emergencies, inquest hears

Thursday, 18 April 2024 10:40

Last week inquest heard Whitehorse emergency shelter staff members testifying that they were not trained for the emergencies that caused the deaths of four Yukon women.

The coroner’s inquest into the deaths of four Yukon Indigenous women at the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter which began April 8 has entered its second week.

Last week inquest heard Whitehorse emergency shelter staff members testifying that they were not trained for the emergencies that caused the deaths of four Yukon women.

The inquest heard Whitehorse emergency shelter staff members testifying that they were only trained on basic CPR and how to administer naloxone, a medication that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose and that at the time of the deaths of Cassandra Warville 35 and Myranda Tizya-Charlie 34, there was no clear policy or training available to staff on how to deal with overdose incidents nether were they trained on how to monitor intoxicated guests.

Yesterday, the inquest focused on pathology and toxicology reports.
An expert toxicologist who testified said that fentanyl is increasingly a drug of choice. Some people prefer it to other drugs, said Dr. Aaron Shapiro via Zoom from British Columbia.
Shapiro also confirmed that drug testing-strips are sometimes employed to confirm there is fentanyl in the drug, something the Inquest heard earlier from frontline workers.

Testing-strips are intended for 'harm reduction' as it indicates whether there is contamination of fentanyl in another drug; it lets the user decide whether to throw it away as fentanyl is known to be associated with overdoses more than other drugs, or not. Some users of the strips, however, want to see the presence of fentanyl due to the specific effect the drug provides.

On Monday the circumstances surrounding the death of Darla Skookum, 52 was shared. The CCTV video played at the inquest shows Skookum hanging out in the shelter's lounge area, drinking from a cup.
Later, unable to stand or walk, she was moved by shelter staff using a wheelchair to the overflow sleeping area. The video shows three staff members transferring and lying her flat on her stomach on a floor mattress around 9:45pm.

While staff and clients came and went from the room for over 12 hours, Skookum remained in her bed, unmoving. After 10am the next morning, video footage shows a staff member checking on her, then leaving and bringing back a paramedic a few minutes later.
According to family member present at the Inquest, said she felt angry when she watched the video.Darla Skookum was a "rambunctious" girl who loved gymnastics and was in the marching band at school, the family member said.

The inquest heard the testimony of the RCMP officer who responded to the call on the morning of Skookum’s death.
He said some video footage of the corridor during Skookum’s transfer on the wheelchair from the lounge area to the overflow room was missing, or never obtained.
Skookum was a citizen of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation. She grew up in Carmacks and Faro with two brothers and five sisters, although only three of the siblings are still living, the Inquest heard.

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