Recommendations from coroner’s inquest under review, Yukon gov’t says [Video]

The Yukon government says it is reviewing the recommendations from a coroner’s inquest this month that looked into the 2021 death of an infant in Watson Lake.

Seven-month-old Kaiya Stone-Kirk was reported dead on Aug. 1, 2021. Stone-Kirk was found to have suffocated at the home of a babysitter after being put to sleep on an adult bed. 

The babysitter for Stone-Kirk and her brother had been arranged by a social worker with Yukon Family and Children Services, after the children’s usual caregiver — their grandmother — became too ill with COVID-19 to look after them.

The jury in the coroner’s inquest held in Whitehorse this month found Stone-Kirk’s death was accidental. The purpose of the inquest was not to determine whether any party was at fault; rather, it set out to find the circumstances of the death and make recommendations to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The jury made 13 recommendations, focused …