Florence Girard, seen in a family handout photo from 2006, died of starvation in a Port Coquitlam, B.C., home in 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO
BURNABY, B.C. – The woman who was supposed to be caring for Florence Girard before she died of starvation in 2018 says Girard would go into a “meltdown” every time she was supposed to go to the doctor or receive medical care.
Astrid Dahl told a coroner’s inquest into the death of the 54-year-old woman that she reported Girard’s behaviour to managers at the Kinsight Community Society but no one provided any solutions.
Girard, who had Down syndrome, weighed less than 50 pounds when she died while under Dahl’s care, and the caretaker was convicted in 2022 for failing to provide the necessities of life.
The coroner’s inquest is looking into the death of Girard, who died while being cared for under a program overseen by Kinsight for people with developmental disabilities.
Dahl told the inquest she would approach things differently now given Girard’s death, but at the time she felt the meltdowns were causing the woman so much stress that it was better to keep her at home rather than take her to medical care.
Girard’s sister told the inquest Monday that she would have looked after her sister had she received some sort of funding support.
Earlier in the day, the president of a Down syndrome advocacy group in British Columbia told the inquest that more funding support is needed for parents and caretakers to avoid tragedies such as Girard’s death.
Tamara Taggart says 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.
Taggart, whose organization was launched in 2021 in direct response to Girard’s death, says her family had to pay $12,000 a year for therapy to help her son learn how to eat solid food, and the province provides no support in her case or other similar situations.
She says 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 from similar care for their loved ones because of the high cost and access.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 14, 2025.
