Despite a coroner’s inquest, an internal review, and 21 recommendations, the province’s child and youth advocate says more needs to be done to help special needs children like Dylan Lachance, who died while in custody at a youth facility in Prince Albert in 2013.
Bob Pringle today released a special report into the death of the 16-year-old, concluding, “The lack of care and attention to the vulnerable youth was an aggravating factor in his death”. Lachance died of bronchial pneumonia and a lung infection. Pringle says the teen was deaf and speech-impaired and was not familiar with sign language, so he had great difficulty communicating.
“His voice was not heard,” Pringle said. “There were no resources put in place to try and better understand what he was saying and a decision was made by the night supervisor in the face of significant illness to wait until the morning to have his condition reassessed.”
Lachance was taken to a doctor for treatment of a sore back earlier in the week, but at that time displayed no symptoms of pneumonia. Over the next 48 hours, he quickly deteriorated. Staff wanted to get him to hospital immediately, but the supervisor held off. On the night he died, he was in his cell whimpering in pain and throwing up.
The family attended Pringle’s news conference at the legislature today. Family spokesman Arnold Blackstar says the boy’s mother, Dinah, believes her son would not have died if someone would have called on her to help communicate her son’s needs.
“Absolutely,” he said. “While the youth was in distress right from the get-go, who knows better than a mother how to care for her child during times of illness. She had 16 years of caring for that child and not to be included in that process is horrendous.”
Pringle made 10 recommendations in his report — mainly dealing with better and more specialized care for special needs children in custody, and greater communication between staff and agencies involved in corrections. An inquest into the death was held in 2014. Since then, there have been changes in procedures, including a permanent nurse on staff. Management has also changed at the centre.