Regulators in Alberta say they will investigate a local naturopath and her role in the troubling case of a toddler who died of meningitis.

The child’s parents have been found guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life for their 19 month old toddler Ezekiel in 2012.

David and Collet Stephan had treated their child with natural remedies for the flu and croup for 2 weeks before seeking out a naturopathic cure for meningitis from a local naturopath.

Emergency Room Doctor Brett Belchetz told Zoomer Radio’s Fight Back with guest host Jane Brown, naturopaths are responsible for reporting a sickness that is outside their realm of treatment.

“They are told by their college, when a patient comes in with illnesses, that look like things are outside of their domain to make sure that urgently traditional medical practitioners are called in to give attention to the patient, and so, given that naturopathic physicians would’ve seen this child so stiff that he was unable to sit up and looking quite ill, this would seem to have been a natural circumstance where they would have called 9-1-1 or somehow recommended to the parents that treatment in a hospital was somehow more appropriate,” explained Belchetz.

The parents are still deciding whether or not to appeal the verdict. The offence carries a maximum five-year prison term.

The father has issued a warning to other parents on his Facebook page, that parents should be wary of government intervention in the way they bring up their children. He tells jurors that he deeply loves them, but they were wrong. He wrote “may heaven help us all.”