Smith inquest: medical evidence
Posted Nov 2, 2010 07:20:56 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A medical report presented during Day 1 of the Ashley Smith coroner’s inquest presents shocking new information about how the teenaged inmate was sedated while in custody.
Smith died in an isolation cell at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener three years ago, and as the inquest into her death began yesterday, lawyer Julian Falconer, representing Smith’s family, included a medical report from the time Smith served in a Quebec prison, the CBC reports.
The report shows Smith was restrained and forcibly injected with unnecessary tranquilizers and antipsychotic drugs at Quebec’s Joliette Institution, three months before she was transferred to Kitchener.
Her treatment there, documented in the January 2010 report by psychiatrist Paul Beaudry, was submitted to the inquest by Falconer.
Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers tells the CBC he ordered the Beaudry report when, “we saw the use of medication where it was, in our opinion, not clinically warranted,”
He says, “So, in other words it was medication that was being used to manage her behaviour but not necessarily being used for a therapeutic purpose.”
Beaudry says Smith suffered from an anti-social personality disorder with borderline traits.
Falconer hopes Beaudry’s report will help his arguments to expand the scope of the inquest into Smith’s death to include her entire time in corrections facilities, not just her time in facilities in Ontario.
“A psychiatrist prescribed medication without ever seeing her,” Falconer says.
The inquest continues in Toronto today.
