This story includes details readers might find disturbing. Part 2 in a series.
Over a period of less than 12 months, emergency room nurses at the Lakeshore General Hospital alerted the office of Health Minister Christian Dubé to the deaths of three ER patients — each fatality occurring under highly controversial circumstances and which the nurses insist were all the result of systemic negligence — yet the minister’s inner circle did not intervene, a Montreal Gazette investigation has found.
The nurses — who used pseudonyms for fear of losing their jobs — decided to email Dubé, given his reputation as a self-described numbers man who has taken a pragmatic approach in seeking to solve the entrenched problems in Quebec’s health-care system, most recently its province-wide ER crisis. Although officials in Dubé’s entourage promptly acknowledged receipt of the nurses’ emails each time, they did not follow through with them with additional inquiries to know more about the circumstances of each death.
In drawing Dubé’s attention to the ER deaths, the nurses hoped he would take swift action after they said their pleas went unheeded by Lakeshore management. The nurses had also emailed “On vous écoute,” an anonymous tip line set up by Dubé’s predecessor, Danielle McCann, to encourage nurses and other workers to denounce instances of abuse and neglect. The goal of “On vous écoute” was to end a culture of Omertà — or code of silence —...
stage at the Ninth Circuit, where pharmaceutical companies say a momentous new ruling "illustrates perfectly" the constitutional concerns of U. S. Supreme Court justices regarding FCA enforcement. ...