The territory’s chief coroner is recommending a full review surrounding the death of a woman at Yellowknife’s Stanton Territorial Hospital back in 2015.
The recommendation read that “a full internal review on Stanton Territorial Hospital policy, protocols and procedure be completed on the patient care given to Mrs. Lori Peddle.”
In November 2015, 42-year-old Lori Peddle returned to Yellowknife from a trip to Las Vegas.
During the trip and on her flight home she reportedly began experiencing shortness of breath, and went to Stanton Hospital on Nov. 14.
When examined, doctors found her blood oxygen levels were low.
She was given steroids and oxygen, and admitted to hospital for further treatment, but just before 3 a.m. the following morning she went into medical distress and became unresponsive.
CPR was unsuccessful in resuscitating her, and Peddle was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.
Her death was classified as natural and attributed to a type of blood clot in the leg that breaks loose and travels to the lung, but the territory’s chief coroner – Cathy Menard – wants the hospital to see if anything else could’ve been done.
“She presented with a number of risk factors,” Menard told Moose FM. “[It] was felt that this could be under-looked to see if there was anything that could have, should have been done.”
According to the coroner’s report, significant contributing factors to Peddle’s death included “long periods of immobility (plane flights) and obesity.”
“This was a natural death,” Menard said. “We don’t look for fault or blame, we’re fact-finders so we look at what happened, the circumstances that happened.
“We felt that there should be something that [the hospital] could review and look at their policies, protocols and procedures that were completed on the patient care that was given to Mrs. Peddle.”
Recommendations uncommon
Menard says her office doesn’t make recommendations that often – only a few times a year – and that they are not legally binding.
“[Recommendations] allow you that ability to look back on what happened and all the steps that were taken, and it’s important for them to do that as well in this case,” she explained.
Moose FM has reached out to Stanton Hospital for comment, but has yet to receive a response.
