Carer says rules deterred her from getting help for B.C. woman who starved to death

BURNABY, B.C. — Florence Girard’s caregiver has told a British Columbia coroner’s inquest she was deterred from getting help before Girard starved to death by policies about respecting the rights of people living under their home-sharing arrangement.

Astrid Dahl also says she was “in denial” when she noticed Girard’s rapid weight loss in the months leading up to the death of the woman with Down syndrome in 2018.

Dahl says she first noticed Girard was losing significant weight in the summer, just months before she died weighing about 50 pounds.

But she says Girard would go into “meltdown” every time she was supposed to go to the doctor or receive medical care, and this influenced Dahl’s decision to keep Girard at home instead of taking her to hospital as her condition worsened.

Girard lived at Dahl’s home under a program for people with developmental disabilities overseen by the Kinsight Community Society after being contracted by the provincial Crown corporation Community Living BC.

Dahl has told the inquest she would approach things differently now, given Girard’s death.

However, Girard’s strong reactions against going to doctors as well as policies about respecting Girard’s rights resulted in Dahl not getting her medical help.

“She didn’t want to go,” Dahl testified. “And I was told, if Flo says no, she has rights. And she can say no, she doesn’t want to do it, and I can’t force her to do it. That’s what it says in their handbook.

“I’ve had time to think these things and what could I have done differently for a long time, and there’s many things I could have done differently,” she said. “And that would be one of them.”

Dahl, who was convicted in 2022 for failing to provide the necessities of life, said she reported Girard’s outbursts and refusal of medical care to managers at the organization but received no solutions.

The inquest that started on Monday is scheduled to continue until Jan. 22, when a jury is expected to deliberate on possible changes to the care system to prevent similar cases in the future.

“Because of her hatred of hospitals and doctors, I just thought if I could take care of her, she would bounce back,” Dahl testified on Tuesday.

“I was in denial. I clearly know that now.”

Dahl said she decided as Girard’s condition worsened that it was better to keep her at home instead of letting her die alone in hospice, because of the distress medical settings caused Girard.

“I’ve known her for 30 years,” Dahl testified. “I’m not going to let something horrible happen to her at the very end of 30 years. Why would I do that? Why would I care and love someone for 30 years and then turn around and just go, ‘Oh well, who cares? Who gives a shit? Just put her in hospice. She’ll die by herself. Whatever.’

“It didn’t make sense to me at the time. It still doesn’t make sense to me.”

Dahl told the inquest of first meeting Girard in 1990 when she started working at Kinsight’s predecessor in a group-home setting, saying they “hit it off” due to a shared “crazy sense of humour.”

Dahl said Girard had challenges socializing with others at the group home, eventually leading to the house-sharing situation beginning in 2010.

“She was asked if she wanted to come and live with me, and she said yes,” Dahl testified. “So she’d known my family for the whole time I’d work there, and she’d known my son. He’d grown up with her. So we were all tight-knit, if you will.”

Girard’s sister told the inquest Monday that she would have looked after her sister had she received some sort of funding support, adding that Girard was kept in a bedroom suite at Dahl’s home that was blocked off by a baby gate, with the movie “Titanic” playing in the background at all times.

Dahl responded on Tuesday, telling the inquest that Girard “had a fixation” on the movie and wanted the film on “24/7.”

The baby gate, Dahl said, was for safety as it prevented Girard falling down the stairs.

Earlier on Tuesday, the president of a Down syndrome advocacy group in B.C. told the inquest that more funding is needed for parents and caretakers to avoid such tragedies.

Tamara Taggart told the inquest that parents and caretakers are under heavy financial pressure to provide services such as speech therapy, which can be life-altering for people with Down syndrome.

“There is no support,” she said. “You have to pay. You’re on your own.”

Taggart, a former newsreader whose organization was launched in 2021 in direct response to Girard’s death, said her own family had to pay $12,000 a year for therapy to help her son learn how to eat solid food, and the province provided no support in her case or other similar situations.

She said her family is in a position of privilege to be able to pay and live in Vancouver to access that care, but other families are shut out because of the high cost and lack of access.

“I do this volunteer work so that everybody has equal access, and that parents don’t have to quit their jobs to support their child,” Taggart said. “They don’t have to go bankrupt to support their child and, if I’m being totally honest, they don’t (have to) end up in a mental health crisis for sounding like a broken record about their child all the time.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 14, 2025.

Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press