Patient advocate Shawna Forester Smith mourned, remembered as someone who ‘never gave up’

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Peggy

Shoshana Forester Smith struggled with chronic health issues her entire life but, in her latter years, she also fought for the dignity of everyone else navigating the medical system.

Forester Smith, who was also known to many as Shawna, died in Winnipeg on Valentine’s Day. She was 42.

“If she was fated to have to have to struggle and suffer through all the health issues, then she was also fated to have that path to where she could affect so many people’s lives,” said Forester Smith’s husband, Brent.

“If I had to think of one thing I’d like people to take away is to never give up … and stand up for people who need a voice, because that’s what Shawna did,” he said, his voice faltering through tears.

“She lived a bigger life from a single room and from a bed than most people do out in the world, including myself.”

As a child, Forester Smith had severe asthma and other related health issues. At 28 and newly married to Brent, she was diagnosed with gastroparesis and pseudo obstruction, meaning that her intestines no longer worked properly and she required nutrition though an IV tube.

Close up of a smiling woman with curly black hair — Shoshana (Shawna) Forester Smith, seen in her hospital bed, “lived a bigger life from a single room and from a bed than most people do out in the world,” said her husband, Brent. (Submitted by Brent Smith)

Several years ago, when it became too difficult to be at home, Forester Smith went into long-term care at Riverview Health Centre.

It was there, in 2017, she opened the advocacy door.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said it was going to move patients on the chronic care ward to Deer Lodge Centre as part of government-directed cost-cutting and consolidation of care.

Those are patients never expected to leave a hospital setting, so it was their home, Brent said.

Forester Smith led the fight, reaching out to people in the WRHA and speaking out publicly, comparing their treatment to cattle being shuttled around. The decision was ultimately reversed.

Similarly, she opposed a WRHA plan to cut nursing jobs on the ward by half, and won that battle, too, all from her hospital bed.

Prior to her health deteriorating to the point she could no longer work, the WRHA employed Forester Smith in marketing and communications, and then in human relations. That connection allowed her message to reach the right people when she was no longer there.

Even as her condition worsened, she was able to complete a master’s degree in health leadership.

“She was always so focused and devoted on health care — on people being able to get proper care. The more it affected her and her life, the more passionate she became about it,” Brent said.

“Her personal experience of living in and navigating her way through the health-care system … lit a fire in her that never stopped growing.”

In 2023, Forester Smith learned she would never walk again and was moved to Deer Lodge to spend her final years. But her advocacy only grew, as did her personal discoveries.

Adopted at birth, Forester Smith learned of her birth family connections with Pine Creek First Nation. She was able to reconnect with them and proudly embrace her Ojibwe heritage.

She joined online support groups and shared her health experiences on a quirky blog that received responses from people in Europe, the United States and across Canada.

An experience at Grace Hospital, which she visited routinely for emergency care, led her to start an online petition calling for improvements to ER staffing, wait times and patient bottlenecks.

“Shawna was always so strong and brave and resilient. I always said her real work began after she stopped being able to work a nine-to-five job,” Brent said.

She also became a regular writer of letters to the editor at The Winnipeg Free Press, which led to a column in 2024 devoted to calling out inequality and other issues in the health-care system.

As late as Feb. 8, her column maintained her defiantly optimistic attitude. “Nobody gets through life without struggles,” she wrote. “A common phrase uttered in my room is ‘we can do hard things.’ We can. And we do. Every day.”

Earlier this month, she was presented with the King Charles III Coronation Medal for her advocacy work.

“It let her know that she was doing the right thing and was making a difference,” Brent said, adding Forester Smith has also been nominated for a National Newspaper Award for her column.

The finalists and awards are yet to be announced.

To cope with being confined to a bed, Forester Smith freed herself through writing pieces much longer than columns. In the span of five days, she had a full draft of a novel. and by the time she died there were eight.

“I’m trying to see through as many of those as possible [get edited and published],” Brent said.

Tributes have been filling up Forester Smith’s Facebook page, but Brent has yet to be able to look at them all.

“They bring up so many emotions so I’ve been having to … just look at a few at a time, but that’s because they’re so heartfelt and they are so moving,” he said. “She deserves all of this love and so much more.”

The fact she died on Valentine’s Day “feels somehow entwined with some faith somewhere, you know?”