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A death inquiry is looking at how government intervention could help prevent deaths like that of a Calgary teenager who was killed by his parents due to intentional neglect.

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Alexandru Radita died in 2013 at the age of 15, weighing only 37 kg. He died in his bed at his family’s home in Calgary from a bacterial infection caused by complications from starvation and untreated diabetes. Sign up to receive daily news headlines from the Calgary Herald, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. By clicking the subscribe button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300

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His parents, Emil and Rodica Radita, are serving life sentences after being convicted of first-degree murder for withholding medical help in 2017. The high-profile case has raised concerns about the role of governments and social services in protecting vulnerable young people and gaps in the social safety net that may have led to Alex’s death. The province has ordered a death investigation to look into the circumstances of Alex’s murder. Emil and Rodica Radita District Court Judge Sharon Van de Veen said she would not review the “facts relating to the horror of this child’s life”. Instead, he said the purpose of the investigation is to determine how the state could have intervened to save Alex’s life and make recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths in the future.

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“There were government officials involved throughout this child’s life, including Children and Family Services in the province of British Columbia and doctors and pharmacists,” Van de Veen said. The four-day investigation began Monday and is scheduled to continue this week. It will only include witnesses from Alberta, despite the fact that there were patronage orders in B.C It will address three key issues identified in the preliminary hearings. These include protocols between children’s public service ministries in all provinces, protocols for alerts related to children’s participation in home or online education, and pharmacist intervention when insulin medications are sporadically accessed.

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Alex was taken into the care of British Columbia Children’s Services at age five after his parents failed to treat his diabetes, but was returned to them a year later. The boy and his family fell off the radar in 2009 after the family moved from BC and Alberta authorities were not notified of his case. Alex enrolled at School of Hope, a distance education program in Vermillion, Alberta, in 2009 as a 5th grade student. He never submitted work and no one from the school ever saw him. withdrew from the school at the end of the academic year.

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Current School of Hope vice-principal Michel Despins, who was not working at the school at the time, testified that the school tried to contact Radita’s parents by phone and was successful several times and sent a letter to the family. He said the school now has a “pyramid of intervention” for students who miss homework, starting with a phone call home with parents and eventually escalating to a referral to Alberta Education. That referral has happened three or four times in Despin’s four and a half years with the school, with “mixed success.” He said there is no flagging system to notify if a student leaves the school and does not enroll elsewhere. The death inquiry focuses on Radita’s death, but also includes two other cases involving parents with criminal convictions for failing to provide their children with the necessities of life. Emil Radita, Alex’s father, watched Monday’s inquest remotely from Mission Institution, a medium-security federal prison in B.C. —With files from Michele Jarvie [email protected] Twitter: @jasonfherring

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