Outcry in Canada over treatment of dying local woman

A nurse has been fired from a Canadian hospital after a video emerged showing a dying local woman screaming in distress and being insulted by staff.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault said the nurse's remarks were "unacceptable" and "racist". He said Joyce Echaquan's death would be thoroughly investigated.

It is new in a series of incidents that have raised questions about systemic racism faced by Canada's local citizens.

In 2015 a report found that racism against local people in Canada's healthcare system contributed to their overall poorer health outcomes, compared to non-indigenous Canadians.

Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, had gone to the Joliette hospital about 70km (45 miles) from Montreal suffering from stomach pains. The mother of seven filmed herself in her hospital bed screaming and calling for urgent help.

A member of staff can be heard saying to her, in French, "You're stupid as hell." Another says Echaquan had made bad choices in life and asks what her children would think of her behaviour.

Echaquan died soon afterward. Her relatives told Radio-Canada that she had a history of heart trouble and was worried that she was being given too much morphine.

In recent years Canada has been coming to terms with racial injustice suffered by its indigenous people. Last year a government inquiry found that Canada was complicit in "race-based genocide" against local women.

The report said indigenous women were 12 times more likely to be killed or to disappear than other women in Canada. The inquiry said the cause was deep-rooted colonialism and state inaction.

In June this year, a video of an indigenous chief Allan Adam being repeatedly punched by police while being arrested shocked the country.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said Canada has a problem with systemic racism "in all our institutions, including in all our police forces".

Also in June, health authorities in the province of British Columbia launched an investigation amid claims that some hospital staff was betting on the blood alcohol level of indigenous patients.