Harold Levy, Kerry Gillespie and Catherine Porter STAFF REPORTERS
RUTH DOERKSEN
ANAGAILE SORIANO
Two nurses at Toronto's Hospital For Sick Children are expected to surrender to police this morning on charges of criminal negligence causing the death of 10-year-old Lisa Shore.
Lisa died on Oct. 22, 1998, after being admitted the night before seeking relief from recurring pain in her leg.
Nurses Ruth Doerksen and Anagaile Soriano were responsible for her care.
Lisa had been previously diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a rare chronic pain condition that had been triggered by a broken leg.
A police investigation was launched in February, 2000, shortly after a coroner's jury found that Lisa's death was "homicide," a neutral term meaning the killing of one person by another, instead of accepting the hospital's argument that it was "accidental."
Lawyer Liz McIntyre said yesterday she expected Doerksen and Soriano, her clients, would be charged "shortly" with criminal negligence causing Lisa Shore's death.
McIntyre is expected to accompany the two nurses to a downtown police station this morning where they will be formally charged and likely released on an undertaking to appear in court. They will also be required to submit to photographs and fingerprinting because they are to be charged with "indictable," or more serious, criminal offences.
The coroner jury's verdict stunned officials and staff at the internationally renowned hospital, as did word of the impending charges.
This would be the first time that criminal charges have been laid against a member of the Sick Kids staff since March 25, 1981, when nurse Susan Nelles, then 24, was charged with first degree-murder of Justin Cook, an infant who died suddenly at the hospital.
Nelles was later cleared at a preliminary hearing.
Police sources acknowledged yesterday that search warrants had been executed at the hospital and the coroner's office on Grosvenor St. where the four-week inquest was held.
Crown Attorney Al O'Marra, legal counsel to Dr. James Young, the province's chief coroner, said police executed the warrant at the coroner's office on Monday and seized evidence filed at the inquest.
Doerksen and Soriano were working the night shift when Lisa was brought to the hospital's emergency department for pain relief, given morphine and admitted to Ward 5A/5B where Doerksen, who had worked at the hospital for 14 years, was the senior nurse on duty.
Soriano, a recent graduate who had started working at Sick Kids only four months earlier, was assisting her.
The jurors heard evidence that Doerksen and Soriano neglected to read a doctor's computerized orders, failed to monitor Lisa according to the hospital's written protocols for patients on morphine pumps and conducted little more than a cursory check of her vital signs before she was found dead.
At the inquest, Doerksen denied an allegation she had brought a heart and breathing monitor into Lisa's room after she discovered her patient had died.
Although a juror stood up during the inquest and accused the hospital of covering up Lisa's death, lawyer Patrick Hawkins, who represented the hospital and Doerksen and Soriano at the inquest, told the jurors that Lisa was the victim of "honest human mistakes."
Hawkins told the jury that the Shore family's lawyer, Frank Gomberg, had "innuendo, suspicions and allegations," but "no evidence" to support claims of negligence and cover-up.
Doerksen and Soriano were shocked to hear that criminal charges were going to be laid against them — and so was their lawyer.
"There is virtually no precedent for these kinds of charges," McIntyre said.
"They expected the matter would be dealt with at their professional body. That's the place to deal with questions of standards of care and this is what we're talking about here. We're not talking about intentional acts. We're talking about allegations of negligence. It is inappropriate that it be dealt with in the criminal justice system," McIntyre said.
"It's outrageous that criminal charges are being laid at this time. This is three years since this death occurred. It's already been through an inquest. There are proceedings scheduled at the college of nurses, and we have not been advised why the charges are being brought at this time," McIntyre said. "You look at the system. You don't finger the front-line workers. This is going in exactly the wrong direction and I think nurses and other health-care workers are going to be outraged by this."
But Gomberg said McIntyre's comments are misguided because she "has no idea what evidence the police have accumulated since they began their detailed investigation in February, 2000, and she was not at the inquest."
Hospital spokesperson Helen Simeon confirmed that Doerksen and Soriano have continued to be on paid leave from the hospital since November, 1999, when the inquest began.
Yesterday, the College of Nurses of Ontario still hadn't made a decision about whether a discipline hearing for the nurses would go ahead as scheduled or be delayed until after the charges were settled, spokesperson Bill Clarke said.
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