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Makayla Sault, 11-year-old First Nations girl who stopped chemotherapy treatment for her leukemia, opting for traditional indigenous medicine has died.

CHCH News spoke with family spokesman Chief Brian Laforme Monday evening. He says Makayla suffered a stroke Sunday afternoon.

Her family brought her to the hospital, but they left with her sometime in the evening.

She died just before 2 p.m. Monday.

Sault suffered from acute lymphoblastic leukemia. With modern treatment 9 out of 10 patients survive. But after her first round of chemotherapy, she and her family said the side effects became too much for her.

They decided to stop that treatment and instead use traditional indigenous medicine. Sault also went to the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida, which believes in curing cancer with a raw, organic diet and a positive attitude.

In a statement following her death Monday her family claims it was the chemotherapy that caused her fatal stroke.

They say the treatment did “irreversible damage to her heart and major organs”.

Chief Laforme says at the time of her death Makayla was cancer-free, a statement she made herself in a video posted to YouTube last fall.

The Children’s Aid Society of Brant did investigate the case, but did not intervene. A second Aboriginal girl, who can’t be identified under a publication ban, also refused chemotherapy treatment last year.

In a precedent-setting decision, an Ontario Court Justice ruled that Aboriginal parents have a right under the constitution to choose traditional healing for their children.

Chief Laforme told CHCH News that just before Christmas Makayla was just a regular, healthy girl looking forward to the holidays.

There is no word yet on funeral arrangements. Her family is asking for privacy while they mourn her loss.