Made printout of hospital's computer file, inquest told 

A nurse responsible for Lisa Shore's care turned a computer printout of controversial doctor's orders over to the inquest probing the death of the 10-year-old girl at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. 

Lawyer Patrick Hawkins told the inquest Friday that Ruth Doerksen, his client, had found the orders at her home Thursday night. 

The orders called for intensive monitoring of Lisa for potentially deadly effects of morphine, such as depressed breathing and related heart damage. 

They are controversial because the hospital had assured the coroner's office and the Shores that it was unaware of their existence until Jan. 26, 1999 - three months after Lisa died. They had been prepared by an emergency ward doctor but were not read by nurses, as required by hospital policy, while Lisa was under their care. 

Two specialists have testified that Lisa would probably be alive today had she been monitored in accordance with the doctor's instructions. 

A notation indicates that Doerksen printed out the document she brought to court Friday on Oct. 27, 1998, five days after Lisa died. Lisa had been admitted for treatment of non-life-threatening chronic pain. 

Doerksen said yesterday that she printed out the orders because ``there had been no answers as to . . . why she had died,'' and that she did not tell anyone about them at the time because she thought the hospital had all of the information. 

She agreed with Hawkins that the orders were on the hospital's computer system ``for anyone to look at,'' and that she ``just printed it out.'' 

Presiding coroner Dr. Jim Cairns has told jurors that before Jan. 26, 1999, the hospital had led him and the Shore family to believe that they had received Lisa's entire medical record. 

Shore family lawyer Frank Gomberg said outside court that Doerksen's revelations ``seriously undercut the position of the hospital that they wanted to get to the bottom of this. 

``Here this nurse was able to tap into the computer and get orders that they say they couldn't find for three months, and then she sits on it at home for 15 months, where it's not going to help anybody.'' 

Gomberg said that as the inquest progresses he plans to pursue the question: Who at the hospital knew about the doctor's orders? 

''I am on that path, and I will follow that path to its logical conclusion,'' he said in an interview. 

A hospital spokesperson said the institution will not comment until the inquest is over.