Star lawyer calls for criminal probe into Winnipeg emergency room death

WINNIPEG — City police will review evidence surrounding the death of double amputee Brian Sinclair after a national legal expert lambasted the force for its "shocking" failure to investigate why Sinclair was found dead after 34 hours in a hospital emergency room.

Renowned criminal and human rights lawyer Clayton Ruby criticized the Winnipeg Police Service on Wednesday, saying he believes charges of criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessaries of life could be laid against Health Sciences Centre and medical staff in charge of its ER.

Winnipeg police never investigated what factors led to the double-amputee's death in an inner-city hospital waiting room — an omission Ruby called "inexplicable." He urged the police force to reconsider and launch a probe into Sinclair's death, saying this isn't the Winnipeg of 50 years ago when the plight of aboriginals and the disabled was dismissed.

What’s the Canadian word for ‘lousy care’? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article6814702.ece

Some say America should follow Canada’s lead, where private care is effectively banned. But having experienced their procedures while on holiday in Quebec, I really don’t think that’s a good idea at all.

A friend’s 13-year-old son tripped while climbing off a speedboat and ripped his leg open. Things started well. The ambulance arrived promptly, the wound was bandaged and off he went in a big, exciting van.

Now, we are all used to a bit of a wait at the hospital. God knows, I’ve spent enough time in accident and emergency at Oxford’s John Radcliffe over the years, sitting with my sobbing children in a room full of people with swords in their eyes and their feet on back to front. But nothing can prepare you for the yawning chasm of time that passes in Canada before the healthcare system actually does any healthcare.

~snip~

At about 1.30am a doctor arrived. Boy, he was a piece of work. He couldn’t have been more rude if I’d been General Wolfe. He removed the bandages like they were the packaging on a disposable razor, looked at the wound, which was horrific, and said to my friend: “Is it cash or credit card?”

This seemed odd in a country with no private care, but it turns out they charge non-Canadians precisely what they would charge the government if the patient were Céline Dion. The bill was C$300 (about £170).

The doctor vanished, but he hadn’t bothered to reapply the boy’s bandages, which meant the little lad was left with nothing to look at except his own thigh bone. An hour later, the painkillers arrived.

What the doctor was doing in between was going to a desk and sitting down. I watched him do it. He would go into a cubicle, be rude, cause the patient a bit of pain and then sit down again on the hospital’s only chair.

Seven hours after the accident, in a country widely touted to be the safest and best in the world, he applied 16 stitches that couldn’t have been less neat if he’d done them on a battlefield, with twigs. And then the anaesthetist arrived to wake the boy up. In French. This didn’t work, so she went away to sit on the doctor’s chair because he was in another cubicle bring rude and causing pain to someone else.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.