The 83-year-old had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and had already refused the shot.
Then while Brigitte Kranendonk, her granddaughter who had cared for her for 12 years and held power of attorney, was traveling the doctors restarted MAiD talks.
Kranendonk says her grandmother’s (Brigitte Stegemann ) first answer to MAiD was no, in part because of her Christian faith.
After staff fitted a port for medication, Stegemann tore it out more than once, shouting that she did not want “the dєatᩚh shot.”
Kranendonk says she later explained the port was for pain control, not dєatᩚh.
The change in course, she says, happened while she and her husband were on a 10-day trip in June. The home’s usual check-in calls did not mention that staff had restarted MAiD talks with her grandmother.
Belleville Police have confirmed the dєatᩚh is under investigation by their Criminal Investigations Division.
According to the family:
On a required cognitive check, Kranendonk says her grandmother “got every question wrong,” including believing two living siblings were dead even though she had seen one of them weeks earlier.
Doctors, she says, described the procedure in soft language — “medicine,” “feel at peace,” no mention of dying — to a woman who was deaf in one ear and whose first language was not English.
Two days before the appointment, Kranendonk sat with her and asked, in plain words, whether she knew she was going to die on Friday. Stegemann cried for about 45 minutes and kept saying she had made a mistake.
July 10 was the home’s first MAiD procedure. A nurse who, the family says, was not wearing gloves tried the right arm, missed the vein several times, then switched arms. Blood soaked the nightgown, pillow, and sheets.
When the doctor came in and asked if “medicine” was all right, Stegemann did not open her eyes, nod, or speak. Her hands were clasped. The family believes she was praying. The doctor proceeded. She was pronounced dead in about 10 minutes.
Kranendonk says she has still not been shown the signed request or any waiver of final consent, even though she was the legal substitute decision-maker.
