Posted on 08/12/2025 10:48:02 AM PDT by Morgana
Veya Vanderbrugghen, a baby girl with Down syndrome and other medical complexities whose parents fought the Canadian health care system to get her the care she needed, has passed away.
Key Takeaways:
* Krystal Vanderbrugghen believed the Canadian healthcare system was discriminating against her daughter, Veya.
* Veya received care at Sick Kids in Toronto at one point, considered the premiere children’s hospital in Canada.
* At Sick Kids, Veya’s mother was told her daughter would not receive a breathing tube or a living donor liver transplant.
* Vanderbrugghen said it appeared as if doctors were “slow-coding” Veya, and other doctors directly suggested Veya’s parents should consider euthanasia.
* Veya was eventually moved back to her previous hospital to receive care, but she tragically passed away early this month.
The Backstory:
In a previous interview with Live Action News, Vanderbrugghen explained that Veya was born with Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect in December of 2023. After a successful heart repair, Veya’s liver began to have problems, and she also contracted Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) — which is mild in adults, but can be life-threatening for infants.
At Sick Kids, far from receiving the care she needed and deserved, Veya struggled from what appeared to be blatant medical misinformation. She was overdosed with potassium, which nearly killed her, and then was denied a living-donor liver transplant and a breathing tube. One doctor insinuated the liver transplant was denied specifically because she had a disability.
“One ICU doctor said to me, we have to look at Veya, and all that she is and all that she was born with,” Vanderbrugghen recalled, and said the doctor added, “You know, Mom, you can admit when enough is enough. And when you’re tired, it’s been a really long road for you guys. There is something about allowing someone to die with dignity.’”
Eventually, Vanderbrugghen tried to take Veya to Chicago, where doctors said they could treat her — but Sick Kids refused to send her medical records or even speak to the physicians there. The Details:
In June, Vanderbrugghen was able to have Veya taken from Sick Kids to McMaster Hospital. In an update to her Instagram page in July, Vanderbrugghen said Veya was improving. But in a tragic update last week, she revealed that Veya had passed away. Her family has not yet been revealed the cause.
Her mother wrote:
Our sweet Veya Hope ran into the arms of Jesus yesterday. Though her earthly body carried limitations, her soul was limitless — overflowing with love, light, and courage. Her name was her calling — Hope. She carried it with her every single day she spent inside those hospital rooms and gave it to all who knew her. She taught us to hold onto it when things felt impossible, to believe when we couldn’t see, and to trust that God’s love is greater than anything we face
While our arms ache without her, our hearts rejoice knowing she is whole and free in Heaven. She is healed, she is dancing, and she is being held by the One who created her.
Veya was laid to rest on August 6 in a graveside service that was well-attended by the thousands of people whose lives she touched. A “beautiful ending”:
It’s not clear yet what happened, but Vanderbrugghen said their time at McMaster healed the trauma the family experienced at Sick Kids. And she promised to share the incredible experiences they had in Veya’s final moments.
“Watching Veya finish her race was the most heartbreaking and holy experience I’ve ever lived through. I couldn’t have written a more beautiful ending for her if I tried. God was in every detail — His hand so clearly orchestrating each moment, down to the individuals He placed around us in those final hours,” she wrote, adding, “I can’t wait to share more with you in the days ahead — because the ways God showed up left us in awe. It truly felt like heaven met earth in that room.”
Editor’s Note: This article will be updated with further information as it becomes available. Our condolences and prayers are with the Vanderbrugghen family.
Think euthanasia is bad in Canada now. Wait until the Indians are running the healthcare. Care for whites will be their lowest priority.
And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
Matthew 25:40
New King James Version
Bert wants no strings canadian healthcare in prospective states. Basically is a eugenicist.
Speaking of Indians yes they do get shitting health care in Canada. I mean American Indians too. (Yes I know the Indians you mean but I need to rant) I saw a show on it once. The Indian women complained about poor treatment in the hospitals. The nurses complained about them out on the reservation. The nurses wanted to “lower their numbers” and be rid of them forever. You know what I want to do? I want to go on the reservation and pass out fertility drugs in a Pez dispenser to every woman who is of breeding age.
when health care is “free”, the bureaucrats decide who gets it and who doesn’t. In the rawest terms, the child wasn’t deemed worthy of living.
God is gonna need a bigger hell.
I fail to see why Canada, and our leftist politicians refuse to grant this wondrous boon (used to be called Lebensunwertes Leben) to the prison population.
Those who push government run healthcare fail to understand they then get to decide if you get it.
My wife was on Medicare and they tried to cut her off every single week. I had to file an appeal constantly. She finally gave up and came home to die.
God help us...
What you ought to do is go out onto the reservations and tell them to grow a pair. There’s nothing keeping them on the reservation, either to live or to work. Did the indigenous Americans get treated badly with the Trail of Tears? Yes. So are they going to trust the white man to treat them right now? Especially the govt? If so, they’re stupid. Is there anything forcing them to stay where they can’t work and provide for themselves, including valuable insurance/healthcare? They best way that the indigenous Americans can fuss at being treated poorly in the hospitals is to take on conservative principles and be more independent.
“a baby girl with Down syndrome and other medical complexities”
So were the medical complexities treatable and if not were they the cause of her death?
Realistically this has been the care for severely handicapped and compromised infants for many years.
Is it the best?
No.
However limited resources are always allocated.
That was my first question.
“There’s nothing keeping them on the reservation, ...”
Which is why I would go give every woman fertility drugs in a Pez Dispenser. If there were more Indian babies born, they would need a bigger reservation.
When you get that let me know.
As a newbie, you are not only a damn fool but ignorant to boot. We suspect you are an Ottawa sleeper troll
At any rate, you know little about the world beyond the perimeter of the metaphorical rock you live under
If you’re the measure of an oldtimer, glad to be a newb. You’re DS tendencies are manifest, lecturing the Canadian FReepers about how Canadian politics work. Listening to you about Canada is equivalent to asking Senor-rita about MAGA. Already done more than you ever could in this life, where the only context you have is from reading the newspaper you slept under the night before working off your dose of Tranq.
See....... what you think you know is archaically obsolete. What were Canadian politics is no more, zap, gone for evermore.
Being arch conservative makes you unable to see that there is a future different to the past that was
You are just plain wrong
Canadian conservatives are wresting economic and political control of their destinies away from the left wing Euro lovers now controlling their very lives.
You are a very well trained Freeper conservative. You dredge up an irrelevant incident to prove a larger point.
It’s what Freepers do all the time to justify their ignorance of the larger picture. It is an attempt to justify ignorance of the totality
While maintaining those same policies and processes that they 'learned to live with' under those same masters. Nit an American or even a freedom viewpoint. Statism is their creed and that must be shed before being American. Many benefits to being a US territory. Work through it like all the Territorial manifestations in CONUS history.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.