Family says Alberta government & NDP spreading ‘fake news’ that Nathanael’s death was from COVID
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Summary
14-year-old Nathaniel Spitzer was on palliative care for stage 4 brain cancer when he passed away on October 7, 2019. His sister Simone Spitzer accused Alberta Health of falsely counting his death as a COVID death, even though he had complex pre-existing medical conditions that contributed to his death.
Transcript
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Simone Spitzer took to Facebook on Tuesday calling out Alberta Health for labeling her
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14-year-old brother's passing a COVID death, despite the fact he was on palliative care for
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stage 4 brain cancer. In the provincial government's COVID-19 update on Tuesday,
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Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dina Hinshaw made mention of the boy's death. Although Hinshaw
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mentioned the boy had complex pre-existing medical conditions that contributed to his death,
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she included the boy's passing with the reported 33 new COVID deaths over the long weekend.
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Spitzer confirmed the boy being mentioned was her brother in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
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He died from stage 4 brain cancer, not from COVID. This is fake news, said Spitzer in the post.
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He was diagnosed in January 2021 and hospitalized in August. Two days before his death, he was
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tested for COVID and it turned out positive. Spitzer goes on to request people share her
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post and inform others that this story is fake. The Spitzer family was not only devastated by their
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loss, but they said they were shocked that Nathaniel's death was used to add to Alberta Health's COVID-19
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numbers as the youngest COVID-19 death to date, and called it fake news in that Tuesday post.
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Following the provincial update on Tuesday, Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley and her MLA's attacked
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Jason Kenney and the Alberta government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the wake of the boy's
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death. NDP leader Rachel Notley used the opportunity to criticize the UCP and Alberta Health on Twitter
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for even mentioning that there were pre-existing conditions in Nathaniel's death. Telling their loved
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ones that there were other health complications that contributed to the death offers no comfort
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whatsoever, tweeted Notley. She also added, no matter what pre-existing conditions they had,
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this child died during a fourth wave that was preventable. This shouldn't have happened. We
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need to know what will be done to stop it from happening again. Thomas Dang, the NDP MLA for Edmonton
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South, followed with another tweet. For the 12 percent of us in Alberta who have asthma,
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downplaying the death of a 14-year-old for comorbidities is the opposite of comforting.
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This is a life snuffed short. It's a tragedy and a disaster. NDP MLA for Edmonton Highlands Norwood,
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Janice Irwin, also tweeted, I can't stop thinking about this. A family is grieving the loss of their
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child in a preventable fourth wave. I don't care what other medical conditions this child had,
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they are gone. We need to all fight for better. This cannot happen again.
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Irwin also retweeted a post from Dr. Quentin Durand Moreau of the University of Alberta's
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Faculty of Medicine. I'm disheartened by this, the tweet says, in reference to Hinshaw's mention of
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the 14-year-old boy's complex pre-existing condition that played a role in his death.
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He also tweeted, but I don't understand why we persist in mentioning the pre-existing condition.
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Is COVID involved? Yes or no? And if yes, it was therefore an avoidable death with
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better public health policies. Comorbidities do not matter.
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The Western Standard spoke with Simone Spitzer, the sister of Nathaniel,
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who died of brain cancer last week and said thank you for trying to get the truth out there with us.
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Spitzer also shared a link to a GoFundMe page the family set up in loving memory of Nathaniel Spitzer.
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The page mentions Nathaniel's fight with brain cancer that led to his untimely death on October 7.
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It was created by siblings of Nathaniel to assist their parents with the cost of the funeral and
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the financial toll this has had on them. The donation option has since been disabled,
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as Spitzer told the Western Standard the family has reached their goal for the funeral costs.
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The Western Standard reached out to Alberta Health for comment on the accusations from the family of
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Nathaniel's death being falsely counted as a COVID death, but has yet to get a response as of publishing.