The 11-year-old Ontario girl who quit chemotherapy last year in favour of traditional First Nations therapies has died.
Makayla Sault suffered a stroke on Sunday and died on Monday, according to her family.
She had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. For that form of cancer, chemotherapy has an estimated 80 per cent success rate among patients of Makaylaâs age.
Makayla, a member of the New Credit First Nation near Caledonia, Ont., made national headlines last May when she refused to continue her chemo treatments.
Makaylaâs parents said she suffered severe side effects from the chemo and wanted to stop the treatments. Doctors at McMaster Childrenâs Hospital in Hamilton resisted and called child welfare authorities.
But after meeting with the girlâs parents, the Childrenâs Aid Society decided it would not intervene in the familyâs decision to pursue alternative treatments. The CAS also said removing Makayla from her home âwould cause her great harm.â
Makayla said that chemo was âkilling my body.
âI have asked my mom and dad to take me off the treatment because I donât want to go this way anymore,â she said.
McMaster Childrenâs Hospital later said it respected the CASâs decision in the case.
Makaylaâs family blamed chemotherapy for her death Monday, .
âMakayla was on her way to wellness, bravely fighting toward holistic well-being after the harsh side effects that 12 weeks of chemotherapy inflicted on her body,â the statement said.
âChemotherapy did irreversible damage to her heart and major organs. This was the cause of the stroke.â
In a separate but similar case, an Ontario judge ruled last November that in favour of traditional medicine.
That girl, who cannot be named due to a publication ban, was also receiving chemo for leukemia at McMaster Children's Hospital before her mother took her to Florida to receive herbal treatments instead.
McMaster doctors had said that the girl had about a 90 to 95 per cent chance of survival with chemo. But the judge rejected the hospitalâs bid to compel the girlâs family and the Brant Family Childrenâs Services to force the child back into treatment.