The Saskatchewan Health Authority has launched an investigation into the death of a Saskatoon woman who was waiting for surgery to fix her broken ankle.

The authority said Friday it will be speaking with Kirsten Hanke’s family as part of a formal internal review.

It declined to provide details of her care due to privacy legislation and patient confidentiality.

Hanke’s partner, Morgan Kirby, told reporters at an Opposition NDP news conference the 30-year-old had badly broken her ankle when she tripped and fell while grabbing a package outside their home on Aug. 12.

Kirby said Hanke was scheduled for surgery three days later, but doctors told them they were postponing it because they needed to do another surgery.

In the days that followed, he said, Hanke collapsed at home and later died in hospital.

The family was told blood clots caused by Hanke’s broken ankle got into her lungs, causing a death Kirby said shouldn’t have happened.

“The way I’m coping with this is fighting for her. It’s the only thing I can do,” he said. “I wake up, I’m alone. I go to bed, I am alone. I don’t have my person anymore.”

He said Hanke was thoughtful, though sometimes stubborn, and had the best laugh.

“When she believed in something, she believed in it and she would fight to the death to defend it,” Kirby said.

“She was the love of my life.”

New Democrats had raised the circumstances surrounding Hanke’s death earlier this week in a video posted on social media.

On Friday, NDP Leader Carla Beck urged Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to launch an investigation into what happened.

“The family wants to ensure that as much as possible, something good comes from this senseless tragedy,” Beck told reporters. “Some of the changes that need to happen (must) happen so that this doesn’t happen to any other family in Saskatchewan.”

Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said in a statement he expects the health authority to thoroughly examine the circumstances and “take any appropriate action identified through the review process.”

The health authority has designated the death as a critical incident, which legally requires it to provide a report to the minister about what happened and steps it will take to prevent similar cases from happening again.

The province defines critical incidents as a serious adverse health event that wasn’t expected or intended to occur but resulted in death, disability or injury. The province also says such incidents do not result primarily from patients’ underlying health conditions or a known risk inherent in providing health services.

In 2021, Saskatchewan’s auditor found the province needs to better utilize critical incident reporting to improve patient safety. It had found the overall number of incidents were increasing.

Kirby said Friday the internal review must be done.

“There’s no question it should,” he said. “(The authority’s) first two responses (earlier this week) were personally for me not acceptable.”