Eagle Ridge Hospital doctor speaks out after termination

An emergency room doctor in the Fraser Health region says she’s being forced out of her job after she warned patients about the overcrowded emergency department at Eagle Ridge Hospital.

Dr Kaitlin Stockton is suing Fraser Health for wrongful dismissal over the incident, alleging she’s being “constructively dismissed” and pushed to resign.

Photos of a sign posted to the walls at Eagle Ridge Hospital last November suggested the hospital was having to close some beds in its emergency department due to overcrowding in inpatient wards.

The sign urged patients to reach out to their local MLAs and MPs.

Stockton agrees she’s the one who put the signs up — but says in a notice of civil claim filed in the B.C. Supreme Court that multiple other physicians worked on the letter and received approval from the local department head to post it.

“By the time we posted that sign together as a group, things had become wildly unsafe. We were very concerned for patients and for our inability to care for patients who were critically unwell in a timely fashion,” Stockton told The Leader Spirit.

“We’d asked for help from all levels above us in every way we could think of and no help was being provided, although we were given permission to post a sign.”

Several violent incidents at Fraser Health in the past

The civil claim alleges Fraser Health tracked down CCTV footage of Stockton placing the sign and used the footage to “single out and bully” her — and didn’t pursue any disciplinary action against other members of the department.

“My belief is that they viewed her as the ringleader, and they just wanted to punish her,” Stockton’s lawyer Kathryn Marshall, told 1130 NewsRadio.

Stockton says Fraser Health administrative staff were more concerned with mitigating the bad press it received once photos of the sign were posted online than it was with fixing the issues inside the hospital.

Stockton is also alleging that Fraser Health has done nothing to respond to multiple, serious instances of violence against staff in two hospitals where she’s worked.

Her civil claim lays out several incidents at Eagle Ridge Hospital and Royal Columbian Hospital since last November, including an instance where a nurse was threatened by a man wielding a machete; an incident where a large, intoxicated patient kicked a nurse, breaking four of their ribs; and one where a patient’s pit bull attacked and bit an emergency room physician.

Doctor wanted to advocate for patients

BC Conservative MLA and health critic Elenore Sturko says those incidents are appalling to hear about.

“It’s stomach churning. It’s gut-wrenching. I think enough is enough, we need some immediate actions taken. Relational security officers are doing their darndest, but they are not trained to take on the types of threats that healthcare workers are facing in their workplace right now,” Sturko said.

“It’s going to take some real leadership here; unfortunately we haven’t seen that so far. But this should be a wake-up call to the premier and to the minister. If they don’t take action…honestly, I fear [someone] will be killed in the workplace.”

Stockton says many incidents don’t go reported and alleges the health authority has failed to take any sort of action to remedy the situation. She said,

“We’ve been ignored and dismissed!”

“There have been some promises by senior executives that they’re working on implementing a weapons detection system. Or they’ll make statements like ‘safety is a priority, we value the safety of our providers’ — but on the ground, we don’t see any changes. We continue to feel very unsafe. And now not only do I feel physically unsafe, but I feel psychologically unsafe that I’m not allowed to speak up for myself or more importantly for patients.”

Stockton said she was shocked that her job was threatened when she posted the sign — noting her intent was to advocate for patients and help them make better decisions for their own care.

Fraser Health and the Ministry of Health declined to comment

Marshall said she was floored when Stockton came to her with the details of her claim.

“But I think there’s a pervasive culture of this happening in hospitals where doctors are silenced from speaking out …. And I think we also think about doctors as being empowered people, and in many ways, they don’t have the kind of power we think they do,” Marshall said.

“I think they’re very much beholden to the health authorities and the hospitals.”

Marshall said there can only be accountability if these kinds of issues are made public — something echoed by Sturko.

“We’ve seen that this government’s not only punitive in attacking people who release information that’s in the public interest — but they fail to act anyway,” she said. “And I think it does take a certain level of public scrutiny and public information to come forward before they finally get embarrassed enough to take action.”

Fraser Health and the Ministry of Health both declined to comment on the case, which is before the courts.

“Speaking more generally, it is essential that healthcare workers across the province feel they can raise workplace concerns to their employer,” Health Minister Josie Osborne said in a statement.

“Hearing directly from frontline workers is fundamental as we work together to strengthen public health care in B.C.”
Marshall said Fraser Health has yet to respond to Stockton’s notice of civil claim.

— With files from Jack Morse.