This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 800-273-TALK (8255).
The granddaughter of an 83-year-old Canadian woman who died through the country’s assisted-death program in July says her grandmother had no idea she was about to die until she was told she would be given a lethal injection just days prior.
Brigitte Kranendonk, who cared for her grandmother Brigitte Stegemann, says the family cut short a vacation after learning that the long-term care home had scheduled a second MAiD assessment, despite Stegemann previously declining the procedure.
“Just before we had come back from our vacation, I received a phone call from the home stating that they had booked a second assessment for MAiD to happen with my grandmother, and at this point my Oma had already denied MAiD,” Kranendonk told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday. “When we went to the home after our vacation – we did cut it short, we came home, we saw her. She had no idea what was happening.”
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Kranendonk said that she was her grandmother’s primary caregiver and that her family had decided to place Stegemann at The Pearl care home in Cannifton due to physical and mental decline.
Her grandmother, however, still had a good appetite and was in good spirits even following a stomach cancer diagnosis, and rejected the idea of using MAiD when it was presented as an option.
“She had an opportunity to get an IV port, meaning for injectable medicine. They didn’t have to re-poke her every time,” Kranendonk said. “It was kind of a one-and-done deal. She had ripped it out several times because she kept saying, ‘I don’t want the death shot.’”
“And it wasn’t until I, face to face, explained it to her that this is not what it is, this is just pain management,” Kranendonk added. “That was the scary part is that it felt like she went from screaming, ‘I don’t want the death shot,’ to then accepting MAiD. But only while I was on vacation.”
Stegemann was killed under Canada’s physician-assisted suicide program, called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), on July 10.
Kranendonk says her grandmother’s first language was not English and that she was severely hearing impaired.
“My grandmother’s first language is not English,” Kranendonk said. “She is severely hearing impaired. And she, her whole life, was terrified of feeling dumb. She never wanted to look as if she didn’t understand what was going on. And so when the doctor came in and was explaining MAiD and using very loose terms, like, ‘We’re just going to give you medicine, you’re not going to feel pain. And don’t worry, you won’t have a bowel movement,’ my grandma’s just sitting there nodding. And I stopped, and I said to her, ‘She doesn’t understand what you’re saying.’”
When Kranendonk directly asked Stegemann whether she knew she would die that Friday, she said her grandmother was visibly shocked and cried for roughly 45 minutes, repeatedly saying, “I made a mistake.”
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The doctor had allegedly said Stegemann could “deny” MAiD on the day of the procedure, but Stegemann was already unsure if her grandmother had actually consented to it in the first place.
The day the procedure occurred, Kranendonk said the nurse who was administering the IV was not wearing gloves and had a hard time putting it into her right arm, piercing her grandmother many times.
“I’m not a nurse,” Kranendonk said. “I’ve never done an IV. I’ve seen them done before. There was so much blood with this IV. It was all over her arm, it was soaking through her nighty, it was all over the pillow. And it was all over the nurse’s hands. And at that moment when I saw all the blood all over the nurse’s hands, I realized the nurse was not even wearing gloves.”
Kranendonk also alleges that Stegemann did not verbally acknowledge the doctor’s final question before the procedure was started.
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“And the doctor comes in and says, I can’t remember exactly how she worded it, but it was something like, ‘Good morning, Brigitte, are you OK if we proceed with MAiD,’ or, ‘Are you OK if we proceed?’ I can’t remember what she asked my Oma. My Oma doesn’t say anything. No acknowledgment, no head nod, nothing. Just lying there with her eyes closed. And the doctor says, ‘OK, we’re going to proceed.’”
Kranendonk said the family is seeking investigations by the coroner’s office, an ombudsman and the long-term care action line.
“With the investigation with the coroner’s office, the ombudsman, the long-term care action line, there’s essentially two streams here that we’re asking to be investigated under,” Kranendonk said. “One is the part of the home, and the part that the home had played in this, and then also the MAiD process. The home had taken it upon themselves to fill out the paperwork, witness and get my Oma to sign off. I don’t know what the conversation was that they had with her while she was signing the paperwork, I don’t know if she even knew that it was the MAiD paperwork for it.”
On its website, The Pearl care home in Cannifton, where Stegemann lived, says that it currently has 57 licensed beds with 86 people on the waiting list.
Fox News Digital reached out to The Pearl and Belleville Police for comment but did not immediately hear back.
