WRHA mum on when officials got info

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This article was published 12/02/2009 (6442 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority will not disclose when its top officials — including chief medical officer Dr. Brock Wright and CEO Dr. Brian Postl — read a report that includes key facts about Brian Sinclair’s death.

WRHA spokeswoman Heidi Graham said the board of directors, senior management, WRHA legal team and a "few others" were privy to the administrative review into Sinclair’s death, but would not specify who read the report and when.

Disclosing these facts would reveal how long officials sat on the fact that Sinclair approached the triage desk for care and didn’t bother to correct the public record. It might also explain a series of recent blunders that has left WRHA officials scrambling to explain why top officials "misspoke" about the facts of Sinclair’s death.

The WRHA has come under scrutiny this week for its refusal to release any information related to its administrative review, prompting critics to accuse them of hiding behind the inquest and "cherry-picking" legal reasons for not releasing the report.

Graham said it’s inappropriate to discuss the report or when senior staff read it prior to the inquest.

"Both Drs. Wright and Postl may be called as witnesses at the inquest and those are questions that can be put to them then, and that will be where they answer them," Graham said.

Arthur Schafer, a University of Manitoba professor of ethics, said the public feels betrayed, and wants to know now when top officials learned the truth.

For months, health officials maintained Sinclair never approached the Health Sciences Centre triage desk for care and was not registered in the queue to see a physician. Health officials changed their story last week when Manitoba chief medical examiner Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra revealed that hospital security videos show Sinclair wheeled to the triage desk when he first arrived at the inner-city ER.

Sinclair was found dead in the HSC waiting room Sept. 21, 2008, after waiting 34 hours.

"The failure of the victim to approach the triage desk was the centrepiece of the story they fed to the public," Schafer said. "If they knew it was false at the time they perpetrated it or if they discovered (the truth) and subsequently didn’t correct the record, then they are guilty of failure of openness, failure of honesty."

Experts question whether the release of the administrative review would harm the inquest process, since the purpose of the inquest is to delve into the facts and events leading up to Sinclair’s death — not to assess blame.

The WRHA board has said an outside legal expert recommended against publicizing the details of the review, saying it’s better that the truth come out in full in the inquest.

Manitoba ombudsman Irene Hamilton said she’s not aware of any law that prevents the WRHA from publicly releasing the report prior to the inquest.

Hamilton said she received a letter in late November from Health Minister Theresa Oswald asking whether or not the report could be released. She said the letter advised her to speak directly with Postl to get the background on Sinclair’s death.

Opposition critics called for Oswald’s resignation this week, after she admitted she first learned Sinclair approached the triage desk in late October when she read the administrative review — a key detail she never made public.

"I spoke with the WRHA and the WRHA advised me they didn’t intend to release it," Hamilton said.

Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen said the WRHA’s legal advice appeared to be "cherry-picking."

McFadyen said the WRHA claims it can’t release the administrative review because doing so would violate Manitoba’s privacy laws since Sinclair’s personal health information would also be released.

But McFadyen said the WRHA released those details months ago, including how Sinclair died.

"You can’t have it both ways," McFadyen said. "They either have to comply with the law totally or they don’t."

 

— with files from Bruce Owen

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca