Canadian Mental Health Association staff saw two sides of Brandi Clarke, inquest hears

Employees of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) painted two different pictures of Brandi Clarke on the second day of the inquest into the P.E.I. woman's death at the non-profit’s transitional housing program. 

Clarke died in 2023 from diabetic ketoacidosis — when someone’s blood turns acidic due to a lack of insulin. 

On the first day of the inquest, jurors heard Clarke had a history of being hospitalized and not taking her medications for both her Type 1 diabetes and her psychotic symptoms, which her psychiatrist believed stemmed from schizophrenia. 

In 2021, Clarke started attending a day program for people with mental health and addiction issues at the CMHA-run Notre Dame Place in Summerside. Later that year, she moved into one of its seven supportive housing units. 

“Brandi was a wonderful young lady. She was beautiful. She wanted so much more in her life than what she had. She wanted to work, she wanted to be part of society. Brandi had a smile that would light up a room,” Karla MacAusland told the inquest. 

“But Brandi struggled.”

“We had to remind her to take her meds, to eat, to follow her glucometer, to watch her blood sugars, to shower, to dress,” Sheri Phillips-Irwin told the inquest. “There was a lot of things we had to support her on.”

MacAusland and Phillips-Irwin were both part of the CMHA team that offered mental health support to clients like Clarke, but she received her medical care primarily from Health P.E.I. 's community mental health outreach team and her diabetes nurse educator. 

The inquest heard from them Wednesday, too. 

Her diabetes nurse said that while there have been many advancements in diabetic care — wearable devices like sensors, continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps — Clarke did not seem to like the feeling of any devices on her body, so she would refuse or remove them.

Clarke would always go back to pricking her finger to test her blood sugar, but it was unclear if she was even doing that. 

There were different types of insulin that could be prescribed as well, but when Clarke wound up in the hospital in diabetic ketoacidosis while living in Summerside, it was also unclear if she was taking her insulin with any frequency, or at all.

“She would tell me one thing, but the [Notre Dame Place] staff would tell me something else,” nurse Linda Howell-Coughlin said. “So it was very confusing.”

Howell-Coughlin used an example of a time when Clarke said her late-night eating — which could throw off her blood-sugar levels — was only vegetables. But then staff told the nurse they didn’t even have the foods Clarke mentioned.