Updated News as on 12-2016
It is shocking that the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association found Carolyn Strom, a registered nurse, guilty of professional misconduct after complaining on her facebook page about the care her grandfather received in palliative care.
The hospital stated that an investigation was done into the complaints. Link to the discipline committee report.
On October 25 I wrote about Elizabeth Wetlauffer, who is a nurse that was charged with 8 counts of murder at care homes in Woodstock and London Ontario. EPC reacted to this news by demanding an in-depth investigation be done into murders at care homes in Ontario. Yesterday the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) announced that they are investigating two more suspicious deaths that may be connected to Wetlauffer. Wetlauffer’s acts of alleged murder were not uncovered by an investigation or by “quality control” but rather by comments Wetlauffer made to a psychiatrist.
The SRNA disagreed with Decision.
In a written decision published this fall, the SRNA pointed out that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not absolute. It also stated that courts across Canada have found regulated professionals guilty of professional misconduct because of things they have done in their private lives.
Pending the outcome of a penalty hearing that has not yet been scheduled, Strom could be expelled or suspended from the SRNA or face some other form of sanction, such as a fine.
Strom’s lawyer, Marcus Davies, said he will appeal the decision after the penalty hearing.
“(The SRNA) have over-punished, over-sanctioned and responded inappropriately to a discussion on health care and they have held (Strom) to a standard that I think few of us would expect ever to be held to. You can’t comment on your own grandparent?” he said.
“If you remove nurses from a discussion of health care — which this decision effectively does — nurses will be reluctant or frightened to engage in a frank discussion of health care in public. Then you’ve made the discussion less valuable.”
If the decision stands, it could have repercussions for other self-regulating professions such as doctors, accountants and lawyers, Davies said.
The SRNA said Strom, who identified herself as a nurse in her Facebook post, harmed the reputation of nursing staff at the Macklin facility, which runs contrary to the SRNA’s broad code of ethics.
