Coroner’s inquest recommends better pay for caregivers after starvation death of B.C. woman

A coroner's inquest jury has concluded the death of Florence Girard was a homicide caused by starvation, and issued a number of recommendations to the province.

A coroner’s inquest jury looking into the starvation death of a 54-year-old woman in a British Columbia home-share has delivered more than a dozen recommendations to the province and its contracted caregivers for people with developmental disabilities.

Florence Marie Girard died of severe malnutrition in her caretaker’s home in Port Coquitlam in 2018, in what the jury classified as a homicide.

Girard, who had Down syndrome, weighed about 50 pounds when she died while living with Astrid Dahl as part of a disability program, after her group home was shut down.

In 2022, Dahl was convicted of failing to provide the necessaries of life to Girard. Her initial 12-month conditional sentence was later increased to 15 months in jail by the B.C. Court of Appeal.

At the conclusion of the coroner’s inquest Friday, the jury offered 13 recommendations, including providing better compensation for home-share providers and co-ordinators, and reinstating a provincial medical consultant position within the Crown corporation Community Living BC.

The Kinsight Community Society oversaw the home-sharing service in Girard’s case, after being contracted by Community Living BC under the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.

“I’ve always considered Florence murdered. And now they say homicide. So CLBC needs to make changes,” said Sharon Bursy, Florence Girard’s sister, fighting back tears.

“They’re screwing up and people are dying.”

Karim Ramji, Bursy’s lawyer for the inquest, said he believes the jury’s recommendations are a step forward.

“It just says that it became clear to the jury that there are systemic failures, and there’s a need for a total reset and rethinking of how CLBC is structured, funded, operated, managed,” he said.

Tamara Taggart, president of Down Syndrome, BC calls the jury’s recommendations an indictment of the tax-payer funded CLBC.

“CLBC is a Crown corporation that we are paying $1.7 billion for, and the jury spoke loud and clear today that they are a miserable failure for families everywhere,” she said.

The jury recommendations also targeted the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, calling for the ministry to provide more funding for CLBC health services.

In a statement to CTV News, the ministry says it’s looking forward to reviewing the recommendations in detail.

“It’s our highest responsibility to keep vulnerable people safe,” said Sheila Malcolmson, Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.

“We are grateful to everybody who has participated and shared in the inquest. CLBC and I will learn from the recommendations of the jury on how to further improve accountability and safety.”

Court documents say Girard required round-the-clock care in virtually every aspect of her daily life, including being supervised while she ate.

The documents say 2012 records showed Girard was healthy and weighed an appropriate 120 pounds.

Her appetite reportedly changed in the months leading to her death, but Dahl did not arrange for her to receive any medical attention, according to the documents.

They say Girard’s last medical appointment for any assessment was in March 2014.

The coroner’s inquest into her death began on Jan. 13 in Burnaby, with presiding coroner Donita Kuzma and a jury hearing evidence delivered under oath from witnesses to determine the facts around Girard’s death.

Bursey told the inquest that she was so small when she died that she “looked like a child” in her casket.

She said she would have quit her job to take care of her sister had she known the seriousness of her condition, and if the province provided additional support.

Bursey said Community Living BC did not offer financial aid to help Girard stay with her family, and therefore Girard had to live in Dahl’s home under the oversight of the non-profit Kinsight.

Dahl told the inquest she received around $2,000 a month to care for Girard as well as some money to pay for respite if she needed help.

Earlier this week, Tiffany Wickham, a manager with Community Living BC, acknowledged that the money provided to caregivers “has not kept up with the rate of inflation and housing costs.”

Wickham told the jury that the Crown corporation “would not be able to maintain the services” it offers if the caregiver pay was increased to meet inflation under its current budget.

Coroner’s inquests do not assign blame, but juries are asked to make recommendations on how to prevent similar deaths in the future.

Bursy said she hopes the recommendations result in meaningful change for vulnerable people across the province.

“I don’t want to ever see this happen again,” she said.

“It wasn’t an accident. It was murder.”

With files from CTV News reporter Kevin Charach and The Canadian Press