An 83-year-old Christian woman in Ontario, Canada, was put to death through the country's assisted-dying program after allegedly failing a cognitive test, weeping for 45 minutes, and telling her granddaughter "I've made a mistake", and now her family wants answers.
Brigitte Stegemann died the morning of July 10 at The Pearl care home in Cannifton, Ontario, through Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying program, known as MAiD. Her granddaughter, Brigitte Kranendonk, who had served as Stegemann's caregiver for 12 years and held her medical power of attorney for six, says the procedure was rushed through without proper consent, carried out by practitioners who had never performed one before, and executed so poorly that her grandmother's arm, nightgown, pillow, and sheets were soaked in blood.
Kranendonk is now appealing to the Chief Coroner's Office in Ontario, the Patient Ombudsman, and Belleville Police, demanding an investigation into whether the procedure was lawful. The practitioners and care home have not commented publicly but maintain, the Daily Mail reported, that Stegemann had legally consented to proceed.
Stegemann had been diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer in February. Doctors gave her a prognosis ranging from six months to as long as two years. Kranendonk, a real estate agent, adjusted her grandmother's diet and continued caring for her at The Pearl, where Stegemann had lived for roughly a year and a half.
When Kranendonk discussed all available options with her grandmother after the diagnosis, including MAiD, Stegemann's answer was clear. "No, I don't want that," she told Kranendonk. In February, when a medical port was fitted, Stegemann repeatedly ripped it off, screaming, "I don't want the death shot!"
Then Kranendonk and her husband left for a 10-day road trip in late June. During the trip, she received calls from the home. Stegemann had fallen and would need a wheelchair. But no one reported a dramatic health decline.
On July 3, while Kranendonk was still traveling, a nurse at The Pearl called to say the home was booking a MAiD assessment for Stegemann, citing serious deterioration. When Kranendonk returned and pressed the nurse on who had initiated the conversation about assisted dying, the nurse became "very abrasive, very defensive," Kranendonk said.
Worse, Kranendonk discovered that a first MAiD consultation had already taken place, and no one had called her. Not the home. Not the practitioners. Not anyone. "No one called me," she said. She had been Stegemann's medical power of attorney for six years.
The second MAiD assessment and cognitive test took place on Tuesday, July 7. Kranendonk was present at first. She watched the MAiD doctor describe the procedure to Stegemann in soft, indirect terms.
"We're going to give you medicine, you're going to feel at peace. And I just want you to know that you won't have a bowel movement."
That was how the doctor explained lethal injection to an 83-year-old woman whose first language was not English and who was severely hearing-impaired, Kranendonk told the Daily Mail. "We're going to make sure you won't have any more pain."
Then the doctor asked Kranendonk to leave the room for the cognitive portion. Four minutes later, the doctor emerged and announced that Stegemann was "deemed fit for MAiD, and we're going to proceed."
Kranendonk was stunned. During the test, Stegemann had been asked how many siblings she had. She said she had none. The correct answer was 13. Asked whether any were still alive, she said no. Two are. She had seen one of them roughly six weeks earlier.
"There was nothing concrete," Kranendonk said. "They're supposed to be doing a cognitive assessment, and yet they picked questions that they can't verify." The practitioners had no way of knowing whether Stegemann's answers were right or wrong, she argued, because none of that background information was in her medical records. "I was astonished that she was given the okay."
Under Canadian government guidelines, a patient must be sound of mind and have a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" to qualify for MAiD. Kranendonk contends her grandmother met neither standard, that she was cognitively impaired and had previously refused the procedure in plain terms. Tragic cases involving disputed circumstances around a person's death are not new, but this one raises pointed questions about institutional safeguards for the most vulnerable.
Wednesday morning, before Kranendonk could even enter the home, the MAiD nurse called. The doctor had an early opening. Could they move the procedure up to Thursday?
The nurse said she had already spoken to Stegemann, and Stegemann had agreed. Kranendonk refused. Stegemann's dying wish was to be surrounded by her loved ones, including her son, who could not be there on Thursday. Moving the date would have stripped that from her.
When Kranendonk confronted the nurse, the response was telling: "Well, I'm just trying to advocate for her. I'm just trying to do what's right for her." Kranendonk later told the Daily Mail she believed the nurse "really, truly believes that MAiD is the best for people, and shame on me for trying to stop that."
Kranendonk then went to the home manager and demanded to see the MAiD consent paperwork her grandmother had allegedly signed. The manager said the paperwork had been filled out the day before and Stegemann had signed it. No family member had been present. Kranendonk has never seen the documents.
"I don't know who the witness was. I don't know how they explained the paperwork to her. I don't know what they said to her. I have no idea."
The manager's response, as Kranendonk recounted it: "I'm sorry. How can we make this better for you?"
That same Wednesday, Kranendonk sat her grandmother down and spoke in terms no one else had used.
"I used very frank terms. I said: 'Do you know that you're going to die on Friday?'"
Stegemann broke down. She cried for 45 minutes. "She was bawling. Inconsolable," Kranendonk said. And then the 83-year-old woman said three words: "I've made a mistake."
Kranendonk pleaded with her. She told her grandmother the doctors were coming Friday, "and you just say no." She repeated it: "There's no mistake. You don't have to do this." The doctor had assured Kranendonk that Stegemann could still refuse on the day of the procedure.
Thursday, the day before, was different. Kranendonk and her grandmother danced to German Polka music and ate ice cream together. "We had the best day," Kranendonk said. But underneath, she was torn. "Part of me was like, maybe it's not going to happen. And then there was this underlying feeling of, oh God, what if it does?"
When families lose loved ones under deeply disturbing circumstances, the questions that follow can be as painful as the loss itself. For Kranendonk, those questions center on whether anyone in a position of authority paused long enough to listen to what her grandmother was actually saying.
Friday morning, July 10, the family took Stegemann to the care home's garden. They shared strawberry ice cream, her favorite. Her pastor arrived and began a round of prayers.
At 9:30 a.m., the MAiD nurse asked the family to come back inside. The procedure was not scheduled until 11 a.m. They had been outside for only 10 minutes.
What followed, in Kranendonk's account, was a scene no family should witness. The nurse attempted to insert the IV into Stegemann's right arm. She poked the elderly woman "about three or four times with the needle" before giving up and switching to the left arm. Throughout the process, the nurse was not wearing gloves, Kranendonk said.
"There was a phenomenal amount of blood. It is all over my Oma's arm, it is all over her nightie, soaking through her pillow, all over the sheets, there is so much blood."
Stegemann died with her hands clasped in prayer.
It was the first MAiD procedure ever performed at The Pearl. "I don't know if they just dropped the ball, because they didn't know what they were doing," Kranendonk said.
Kranendonk described her grandmother as a vulnerable person who was exploited by practitioners she believes were "inappropriately ideologically motivated." She noted that Stegemann was hearing-impaired, that English was not her first language, and that she was confused enough on the day of the cognitive test to mix up the names of her own daughter and granddaughter.
"All I saw was her not understanding the process," Kranendonk said. "She's very confused at this point."
As for her own role, Kranendonk does not spare herself. "My Oma wasn't the only vulnerable one in that situation, I was," she said. "I was vulnerable in the loss and love of my grandmother, being her care provider, and I was vulnerable in trusting that they were making the right decisions."
She is now pursuing every avenue she can find, the Chief Coroner's Office in Ontario, the Patient Ombudsman, and Belleville Police, to determine whether the July 10 procedure was conducted lawfully. No charges, arrests, or formal findings have been reported. Cases where institutions face scrutiny over a person's death often move slowly, and Kranendonk's fight may be a long one.
Kranendonk's assessment of Canada's MAiD program was blunt. "You guys have taken this whole MAiD thing and have just rammed it down our throats," she said.
Regarding her grandmother's condition in the weeks before her death, Kranendonk pushed back on the claim of rapid decline. She acknowledged Stegemann had lost some weight, but said the loss had been gradual. "When I came back she was still eating, walking to the bathroom, very talkative and full of jokes," she said. "She never complained about pain in front of me, except when her stomach was being relentlessly pressed."
Doctors had given Stegemann six months to two years. The MAiD process, from the first phone call to the lethal injection, took seven days. When a loved one dies, families expect at minimum that the process was humane, transparent, and lawful. Kranendonk says her grandmother got none of those things.
A system that allows an elderly, hearing-impaired, non-native-English-speaking woman to be ushered toward death in a week, without her family's knowledge, after failing basic cognitive questions, and over her own recorded objections, is not a safeguard. It is an assembly line.