Family looking for answers after woman was turned away by hospital and died overnight

A family is searching for answers after they say their sister was turned away from a Manitoba hospital, then died overnight.

“When I found out, I just started yelling and saying, ‘No, it’s not true, she can’t be gone,’” said Naturelle Cook, sister of Shandi Cook.

“They told her there was nothing wrong with her and they sent her home.”

Naturelle says her sister, Shandi, went to the Swan Valley Health Center on October 11.

“She was complaining that she had a hard time breathing and she couldn’t get enough oxygen, and while she was in the waiting room, she started coughing up blood into her hands,” Naturelle explained.

She believes staff discriminated against her sister, who continued to struggle as she returned to where her dad was staying.

“He said that he was going to phone the ambulance, but she started crying to him, saying that she didn’t want to because they were just going to send her home again, she didn’t want to deal with the hassle, so she told my dad she didn’t want the ambulance being phoned,” said Naturelle.

She says, when he woke up the next morning, he found her unresponsive. He started CPR before realizing it was too late.

“My dad’s been taking it pretty hard since that’s the first kid that he’s lost, and the fact that he went to bed right beside her and she passed away in her sleep, and then he woke up to her being gone.”

Shandi was 25-years-old with a five-year-old son.

“She was the happiest person I knew. She was always laughing, always telling jokes. She was so proud of her son. That was her main priority was her son, despite everything that was going on with her life.”

She says Shandi became a foster parent to care for her and her younger sister after their mother died in 2022.

“I looked up to Shandi as my other mom since my mom passed away, so it’s kind of like hard losing two moms in just a span of a few years.”

Her mom, Melissa Cook, was killed three years, a case police are still investigating. Naturelle is now seeking justice for them both. She says her dad and cousin are exploring legal action against the hospital. 

Prairie Mountain Health, which oversees the hospital, declined to comment.