Former Nunavut nurse back in civil court

Debbie McKeown, the former Nunavut nurse at the centre of the Cape Dorset nursing scandal, continued her push March 13 to have the Nunavut Court of Justice quash disciplinary decisions imposed on her by Nunavut’s licensing body for nurses.

McKeown filed a Jan. 13 notice with the court alleging the Registered Nursing Association of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut investigated and disciplined her twice for the same set of complaints between 2012 and 2014.

McKeown’s lawyer, Austin Marshall of Yellowknife, and the lawyer representing the territory’s registered nursing association, Adrian Wright, spoke to Justice Beverly Browne in an Iqaluit courtroom March 13 via teleconference.

This civil matter, which first came before the courts on Feb. 9, is still in what’s called the discovery stage.

That means lawyers on both sides are negotiating what documents are relevant to the case and which ones should be made available to lawyers.

Browne ordered Wright to compile a list within 30 days of all documents the territory’s association has that are related to this case and then to send that list to Marshall.

Marshall will then have 21 days to identify which of those documents he believes are relevant — and which should be made available to him — before the case proceeds.

Browne also ordered that the identities of people named in the documents be protected by replacing their names with letters of the alphabet other than their initials.

A CBC story, aired and published last October, alleged McKeown was the subject of numerous complaints from co-workers beginning in 2011.

The most serious allegation in that story says that McKeown refused to see a sick infant while working as the on-call nurse at the Cape Dorset health Centre on April 5, 2012.

Later that same night, the three-month-old baby died of a treatable viral infection in his lungs.

According to a Government of Nunavut nursing policy, all infants under one year old must be seen if their parents contact the local health centre after-hours.

None of these allegations — nor those filed by McKeown against Nunavut’s RNA — have been proven in court.

Health Minister Paul Okalik announced in the legislative assembly Feb. 24 that veteran lawyer Katherine Peterson would conduct an external review into the circumstances following the baby’s death.

But some have criticized the review’s terms of reference for not including the events leading up to the infant’s death.

Marshall and Wright are scheduled to discuss their completed list of documents in a Nunavut court on the afternoon of May 19.