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Saturday, May 16, 2015

Demo # 1 at George Pearson Centre

For close to a year I have been trying to see a resident at George Pearson Centre and I was always told that the patient was NOT up-to-it.  The last e-mail I got from Risk Management said that CarolAnn does not want to see me.  It has been close to a year and I do not believe Richard Singleton, Director of Risk Management.

Since I can't access George Pearson Centre I decided I would do up a sign so that someone would get a message to CarolAnn to say that I was on the sidewalk boulevard.  The sign said:  TELL CAROL ANNE THAT I MISS HER.  Innocent enough even if she doesn't want to see me I wanted her to know that I have not abandoned her.  She is a quad and she can't speak.

To make the situation a bit tense, Paladin Security, the security company that has taken over the security of all Vancouver Coastal Health properties and the one that really hurts is that Paladin and their lack of understanding basic law is even in the court house, approached me and threatened to call the police as I was harassing patients.  What patients.  No one asked me about my sign and I was on a public sidewalk..

That reminds me whatever happened to my complaint of October 21, 2013, wherein the security guard, Karen Marshall, put a choke hold on me when I was acting in self-defense over the hysterics of two nurses: one who was tired and the other spiteful. 

And there is Cheryl, Randy's nurse at that time, who saw me fall on the sidewalk when I was going to visit Randy and I wasn't able to get up. She walked by me without even inquiring if I was okay.  No I wasn't okay.  Whatever happened to her and my complaint. I suspect because the fall happened on public property she was under no obligation to help me.

I have come to the conclusion that Vancouver Coastal Health is a totalitarian state, with its own police force, ruled by star chamber justice.

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Friday, May 8, 2015

Those damn hospital/patient alarms ...

"You hear an alarm every second of every day,” Manley [the nursing home’s defense lawyer] said."

RT charged with criminally negligent homicide.
 
  http://www.startribune.com/trial-of-ny-nursing-home-employees-in-patient-death-begins/302686381/ 

By FRANK ELTMAN Associated Press
May 5, 2015 — 8:45pm
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Five employees of a suburban New York nursing home are defending themselves against charges they disregarded alarms for more than two hours, leading to the death of a 72-year-old bedridden patient who was not connected to a ventilator.
Opening statements in the complicated double-jury trial began Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Riverhead, on eastern Long Island.
The five defendants are among nine workers at the Medford Multicare Center for Living Inc. charged in the October 2012 death of Aurelia Rios of Central Islip. Two of the nine have pleaded guilty, while two others are expected to face trial this summer. The corporate entity that runs the nursing home also is facing charges in the woman's death.
In the case of the remaining five, state Supreme Court Justice John Collins decided to conduct one trial to save time but have two separate juries hear testimony simultaneously. One jury is considering the case against Kethlie Joseph, a respiratory therapist accused of failing to connect a respirator to Rios and later ignoring pagers and other alarms indicating she was in distress.
The second jury is considering the case against four others — the director of respiratory therapy and three nurses — who are accused of falsifying business records and other charges stemming from the woman's death. All five have pleaded not guilty.
During her first opening statement in the case against Joseph, prosecutor Veronica MacDevitt said Joseph was charged with criminally negligent homicide for failing to ensure that Rios was connected to a ventilator. "It was the most basic and most fundamental aspect of her job," MacDevitt said. She added that later, when electronic monitors and other indicators showed that the patient was in distress, Joseph and others disregarded the alarms.
Defense attorney Jonathan Manley countered that Joseph had to care for 20 patients the night Rios died, and he questioned the effectiveness of a pager alarm system that he said went off constantly throughout the night for both serious and incidental problems.
"You hear an alarm every second of every day," Manley said. "A beeper is not a reliable indicator of a patient's health."
He added there was a nurse in Rios' room throughout the night, and that when Joseph was finally informed
Later Tuesday, MacDevitt laid out the case against the four other employees before a separate jury. She said each in their own way either failed to respond to alarms indicating the patient was in distress or subsequently lied to investigators about Rios' death.
"Someone else's failure doesn't excuse their failures," MacDevitt said.
Although opening statements were conducted separately before each jury, the judge indicated that for the majority of the trial, both juries would hear testimony simultaneously. The trial, expected to last five to six weeks, is being held in a large courtroom in the Suffolk County Court complex. Although rare, other double-jury trials have been held in the county.
Hank Sheinkopf, a spokesman for the Medford facility, called the trial "a very complicated case. The facts will be presented to the judge. And we will prove that Medford's patient commitment was not lacking."
Among the expected expert witnesses is a Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist and host of HBO's "Autopsy." 

Richard J. Mollot, Executive Director
Long Term Care Community Coalition
One Penn Plaza, Suite 6252
New York, NY 10119
www.ltccc.org
www.nursinghome411.org
www.assisted-living411.org
Phone: 212-385-0355
Emailrichard@ltccc.org

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

New demo sign

29 April 2015

FAX 604-733-3503

Mr. Graeme Keirstead,
Chief Legal Council,
BCCPA,
669 Howe Street,
Vancouver,  B.C.
V6C 0B4

Dear Chief Legal Council:

Subject:  FYI

My demo sign being a work in progress now reads.  Your comments, if you have any.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons gives leave to its physicians to place unlawful (without clear consent) DNRs on its patients.

The secret star chamber courts and doctors policing doctors both have to end.

Yours sincerely,


Audrey Jane Laferriere,
5976 Cambie Street,
Vancouver, B.C.
V5Z 3A9
604-321-2276




Nurse Charged with Manslaughter in Ontario (no consent)

A nurse has been charged in the death of a patient who was removed from life support, allegedly without authorization, at a hospital in the central Ontario community of Penetanguishene last year.
The charges against Joanna Flynn, 50, are related to the death of 39-year-old Deanna Leblanc, a patient at Georgian Bay General Hospital.
The case is "essentially unprecedented in Canada," said Kerry Bowman, a bioethicist at the University of Toronto, adding there are "lots of surprising questions" raised by what allegedly occurred.
Leblanc, a married mother of two teenaged sons had a scope done on her knee on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, at a hospital in Newmarket, Ont. It was supposed to be a routine out-patient procedure that took about half an hour, according to her husband, Mike Leblanc, but 36 hours later she was dead.
'She was telling me she was dying and begging me to help her.'- Mike Leblanc, wife of woman who died in hospital
He said his wife of 23 years appeared to be fine after she returned home after the scope. But on Sunday morning about 3 a.m. "all hell broke loose." She woke her husband and said she had to go to hospital.
"She was telling me she was dying and begging me to help her," Leblanc said.
He drove her to to Georgian Bay General, where she was admitted to the intensive care unit and placed on life support. She died later that day.
"My biggest concern is why did she end up in that hospital? What went wrong in those 36 hours that she ended up there?" he said.
Deanna Leblanc
Deanna Leblanc died March 2, 2014, at Georgian Bay General Hospital in Penetanguishene, Ont. A nurse working at the hospital at the time has been charged in her death. (Facebook)
"I still don't know why I lost my wife and why my kids don't have their mother any more. She was 39 years old and there was nothing wrong with her other than a sore knee. I was told it was a simple operation."
Midland police said they began an investigation on March 6, 2014, and made an arrest on Thursday. Flynn, of Wyevale, Ont., is charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death. She appeared in court on Thursday and has been released on $50,000 bail. She is due back in court on May 28.

'Great mother'

"In a small community such as ours, when there is a death we are so tightly knit it does impact folks that live here," said Insp. Ron Wheeldon.
Mike Leblanc described his wife as a "great mother" who had a touching ability to sense when something was wrong with someone else.
"We were best friends and she was a best friend to the kids, too," he said.
The investigation and subsequent charges took him by surprise.
'We want to assure the public that we believe this is a one-off event.'- Georgian Bay General Hospital
"I didn't think there'd be any investigation. I didn't realize anybody had done anything wrong," he told CBC News.
He told the Barrie Examiner he did not suspect foul play until days after his wife's death when he was contacted by Midland police, who told him they had opened an investigation.
Flynn no longer works at Georgian Bay General Hospital and CEO and president Karen McGrath said it was officials at the hospital who alerted police to the circumstances of Leblanc's death.
"We want to assure the public that we believe this is a one-off event ... We actually did some investigation. We actually reported it to the police," McGrath said Friday.

Timing of charges curious, lawyer says

Lawyer Mark Handelman, who often deals with end-of-life cases, was interviewed about the charges against Flynn Friday on CBC Radio's Metro Morning.
"It's very curious to me that it took a year to decide to lay charges, which I think indicates the potential complexity of it," he said.
"I'm curious to know what the police mean when they say life support was discontinued without authorization."
He said life support is recognized as a treatment under the law and withdrawing it requires consent from the patient or a "correct substitute decision-maker."
"I've never seen a case where a nurse would implement the withdrawal of treatment. I've only seen a physician be the person that would remove life support," bioethicist Bowman told CBC News.
According to Bowman, the decision is not usually made by a single person and would usually take weeks of discussion between family and health-care workers.
"I cannot stress enough how decisions are made collectively and not in isolation ... If it was a misunderstanding about consent, there will be lots of questions as to how that could possibly happen."
With files from The Canadian Press

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Hugh Scher

Further to my earlier post, this demands a reminder: Hugh Scher 1-416-668-6115  hugh@sdlaw.ca

"If we are not able to stop the most basic abuses relating to DNR orders or end-of-life care measures now, expanding those practices presents dangers."

This statement alone should be enough to force the government of Canada to order a Royal Commission on the Carter Reporter and to enact the notwithstanding clause.

Scher continues:

"The Carter decision risks creating a culture of permissiveness with regard to all end-of-life matters."  
.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Owen

I can't get over Owen, Randy's little terri-poo, not wanting to eat unless I feed him by a spoon. 


Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Good Wife

Yesterday I was watching the Good Wife on the television.  A segment was about the Good Wife being on a panel that overlooked the behavior of police.  It was rubber stamping the actions of the police without full evidence.  It reminded me of how the College of Physicians and Surgeons conducted my complaint against Dr. Dunne. They took his version of my complaint without investigating it.

There was also a documentary on the Fifth Estate (CBC) called Dead Enough which documented the actions of doctors in a US hospital who changed a monitor to deceive the nurses in order to secure fresh organs.  And nothing happened to those doctors either. 

So much for watching television and having flashbacks to what happened to me at the hands of Vancouver Coastal Health. 


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