CORONER'S INQUEST DELAYED UNTIL JANUARY

Hospital covering for nurses: mother

Nurses who were assigned to monitor a 10-year-old Thornhill girl the day she died at the Hospital for Sick Children should have been fired, her mother says.

"The hospital is refusing to admit any responsibility at all.  They've been trying to cover up their actions," Sharon Shore said.  "The fact that the nurses are still working there at all is upsetting."

Shore's daughter, Lisa, died in the pediatric hospital Oct. 22, 1998, after she was admitted to treat acute, but non-life-threatening leg pain.

A coroner's inquest into the unexplained death was postponed until January after the hospital offered contradictory statements over the reliability of a heart and respiratory monitor.

Dr. Jim Cairns admonished the hospital last week for springing surprise evidence on the inquest, when a witness suggested a possible malfunction may have caused a corometric monitor not to sound an alarm after Lisa's heart stopped.

But hospital lawyer Patrick Hawkins contradicted that evidence, telling the inquest the 200 corometric monitors still being used by the pediatric hospital are perfectly safe.

"We've fully investigated the monitor and we're satisfied with them," Hawkins told The Liberal Tuesday.

The inquest has been postponed so the coroner's office and the company that manufactures the monitors can do their own investigation.

But Shore and her lawyer Frank Gomberg claim the monitor never sounded an alarm because nurses failed to attach one to Lisa as they were ordered to by Dr. Markus Schily.

"Our position is she was never on a monitor - period," said Shore, who was sleeping in her daughter's hospital room when she died.

The inquest jury has heard that nurses failed to check doctor's orders detailing how Lisa should be monitored while she was being treated for pain.

Schily placed the orders on an in-house computer, using a hand-written chart to remind nurses to check the computer.

Schily has testified he was "shocked" to later learn the computer-generated orders were never accessed.

The nurses, who are being represented by the hospital's lawyers, have yet to testify.

Hawkins would not say whether any disciplinary action had been taken against hospital staff.

In an interview Tuesday, Shore said the hospital failed to fully inform the family about Lisa's medical care, despite repeated questions.

In a written response to the family's questions, the hospital replied that doctor's orders had been "placed in the system for Lisa to be monitored."

But Shore said the hospital never told them the orders remained unread in the computer system.

"They didn't lie, but they didn't fully disclose everything either," she said.

But Hawkins said both the hospital and the nurses have fully co-operated with the coroner's investigation into Lisa's death.

"I think it's inappropriate to suggest a cover-up or anything of that sort," Hawkins said.

Shore added while she is "saddened" by the inquest's postponement, she wants to be sure the evidence is dealt with meticulously.

"It would be so much easier to have this over and finished," she said.  "But it seems we have to fight to get the whole truth out."

Prior to the inquest's opening, the hospital made a financial settlement with the Shores, which specifies no liability.

Shore said she and her husband will set up a memorial fund for Lisa, who suffered from a reflex dystrophy syndrome, an unusual disorder marked by an unexplained burning pain.

"We want people to know this is not about money," she said.  "If it was, we could walk away now."