Lisa Shore, 10, died of complications due to a broken leg.

Ruth Doerksen, 41, and Anagaile Soriano, 25, surrendered Thursday at a Toronto police station.

They were jointly charged with one count of criminal negligence causing death in the death of 10-year-old Lisa Shore.

The nurses are accused of failing to correctly monitor Shore's morphine drip while she was a patient at the Hospital for Sick Children in October 1998.

The girl had been admitted with nerve pain stemming from a broken leg.

Charges against health-care workers are rare in Canada and practitioners across the country will be taking a keen interest in the case.

The union that represents Ontario nurses, although not those at the Hospital for Sick Children, says nurses across the province are ``demoralized" by the arrests.

"Unfortunately, (nurses) leave work every day in fear that they cannot provide safe care because of serious understaffing and working conditions," Lesley Bell, CEO of the Ontario Nurses' Association, said in a news release.

"Now they have to worry that they may be criminally charged if something goes terribly wrong on their shifts."

A coroner's inquest in February 2000 ruled Lisa's death a homicide.

The verdict is merely a finding of fact and carries no weight in the criminal justice system.

The Hospital for Sick Children said Thursday in a news release that it was "deeply saddened, for everyone involved," that charges had been laid.

"Regrettably, human error occurred during Lisa Shore's treatment," the release said. "No one has ever managed to eliminate all human error. It is for this reason that our changes have focused on better systems to improve the quality of care and reduce the likelihood of error."

Soriano's lawyer, Liz McIntyre, said the nurses would be ''vigorously defended," although she declined to comment further because the case is now before the courts.

McIntyre said earlier this week that charges against the two nurses would be "outrageous" and that the matter should instead be dealt with at the College of Nurses of Ontario's disciplinary hearing, scheduled to start Dec. 4.

Frank Gomberg, the lawyer for Lisa's parents, said Bill and Sharon Shore have mixed emotions about the charges.

"They certainly never wanted this case to end up in criminal court," Gomberg said.

"They wanted the truth and, unfortunately, they didn't get it before the coroner's inquest, and there's some grave concerns that they have and that I have about whether or not the full story emerged at the inquest."

Police began their criminal investigation as soon as the inquest ended.

"(The police) have gone out and done a thorough investigation and they've concluded that criminal charges are warranted," Gomberg said, adding the charges are "entirely understandable."

"They haven't concluded that they're going to be convicted - that's for a jury."

Gomberg, who attended the coroner's inquest, was adamant that the two nurses - not the hospital or the Ontario government - should be the subject of the investigation.

"This is (about) two nurses and it's their behaviour that night which is being scrutinized in a criminal way," Gomberg said, noting the ward Lisa was in was "relatively quiet" the night she died.

"This had nothing to do with funding."

However, the professional body representing nurses in the province indicated that a nurse's work environment, support systems and communication with other health-care providers affect their work.

"It is crucial to remember that nurses come to work every day with the intent and the commitment to give patients safe and high-quality care," Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, said in a news release.

"It is equally important to remember that nurses provide that care within a set of circumstances in the health-care system."

The fallout from the charges against the nurses may set a worrying precedent, says an expert on medical law.

"If we are now to have the uniformed police and criminal courts standing behind them monitoring what health professionals do . . . they could lose confidence and that could be bad for the health system," said Bernard Dickens, a University of Toronto professor specializing in medical health and the law.

Doerksen and Soriano were expected to be released on bail Thursday. They are to appear in court Nov. 22.