This knife was discovered in Martin Blackwind's cell the morning he was found bleeding to death in 2006. He was given permission under a prison hobby craft program to keep the knife in his cell. (Maureen Brosnahan/CBC)

An inquest jury looking into the death of an aboriginal prisoner who took his life recommends the agency governing Canada's prisons bolster the availability of nurses and psychologists for prisons and learn to respond to and share information more quickly.

Martin Blackwind, 52, died in 2006 after slashing his arm in a prison cell at Warkworth penitentiary in eastern Ontario. Blackwind, from Sioux Valley First Nation in Manitoba, had a troubled past, including several suicide attempts.

He was serving a 17-year sentence for manslaughter in the beating death of his common-law wife, Kathleen Hart.

Blackwind had pushed an alarm button in his cell at 2:37 a.m. ET, but 33 minutes passed before paramedics arrived and found him unconscious and not breathing, his mattress soaked in blood. He was declared dead an hour later.

Guards testified they did not try to stop the bleeding because they couldn't find the wound, which was inside the crook of his left arm.

Witnesses at the trial told the jury of three women and two men in Port Hope, Ont., that Blackwind had mental health problems and needed counselling.

Never met with psychology staff

A Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) assessment identified Blackwind's alcoholism and depression and referred him to the psychology department. But he never met with psychology staff at Warkworth after transferring there in 2000, though he did meet with the prison's psychiatrist, who worked with the institution's medical department.

The inquest jury recommended that the CSC:

• Make nursing staff available at Warkworth Institution 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Continue searching for additional psychologists to provide service at Warkworth, in accordance with policy, so someone is on call at all times.
• Consider implementing real-time, digital record access to observation reports and other pertinent materials.
• Consider having briefings at the start of every shift.

During eight days of testimony, the inquest heard from 23 witnesses, including guards, correctional supervisors, medical and forensic experts, a forensic psychiatrist and an aboriginal elder, as well as experts on aboriginal people and the justice system.

Jurors pored over three dozen exhibits, including the hobby craft knife that Blackwind used to cut himself and a bloody block of wood and shoelace found under his body in the cell.

Canada's prison ombudsman, Howard Sapers, has already issued a damning report on the suicide, saying Correctional Service employees did not administer first aid, determine the nature of the wound, respond in a timely manner or report information related to the death in a consistent manner.

Mandy Wesley of the Aboriginal Legal Services, which had standing at the inquest, says the recommendations are a start but don’t go far enough.

"These deaths continue to occur and CSC, they have to take steps in order to address this," Wesley said.

Julianna Greenspan, who represented guards Keith Payne and Tracey Ohl, called the recommendations "reasonable and fair."

"The real facts as to what led up to Mr. Blackwind’s suicide and all of the circumstances surrounding that particular early morning had never been properly, and I think fairly, flushed out and provided to the public and this inquest offered that and gave that opportunity to both our clients," she said.

The inquest recommendations will be reviewed, said CSC spokesperson Christa McGregor. "We take deaths in custody very seriously and we will be reviewing the recommendations in an effort to reduce chances of similar deaths occurring."

McGregor said the CSC has already started recruitment programs to try to hire more psychologists and other mental-health professionals to work in Canada’s penitentiaries.

With files from Maureen Brosnahan