Nurse at centre of scandal wants Nunavut court to quash licence restrictions

Debbie McKeown, a former Cape Dorset nurse whose licence to practice nursing was restricted and subject to an interim suspension last year, is asking the Nunavut Court of Justice to quash those disciplinary decisions.

Debbie McKeown, a former Nunavut nurse whose licence to practice nursing was restricted and subject to an interim suspension last year, is asking the Nunavut Court of Justice to quash those disciplinary decisions.

McKeown, in a document known as an “originating notice,” filed Jan. 13 in civil court, alleges the Registered Nursing Association of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut investigated and disciplined her twice for the same set of complaints — once in 2012 and again in 2014.

But the territorial RNA had no authority to re-investigate the complaint and breached a duty of fairness to her, she alleges.

McKeown’s application also seek an injunction that would prevent the territorial RNA from inquiring further into the complaint against her and “quashing all other proceedings taken in furtherance of the complaint.”

The NWT-Nunavut RNA is an independent self-governing body that licences nurses in the two territories. Without a licence from the association, nurses may not work.

A CBC story, “Death and Denial in Cape Dorset,” published and broadcast in October 2014, alleged McKeown was the subject of numerous complaints filed by coworkers and the public.

The most serious allegation made in the CBC story is that in April 2012, McKeown told a Cape Dorset mother not to bring her sick baby into the health centre.

The baby, Makibi Akesuk Timilak, died later that night of a common respiratory virus, the story reported.

The first investigation into McKeown’s nursing practices, however, began in February 2012, prior to the baby’s death.

Her court document says the nursing association used an alternative dispute resolution process and that she agreed to a restriction on her licence and agreed to take a number of courses.

The restriction said McKeown was not allowed to provide nursing or health care to any patient under the age 10, except in emergencies.

McKeown completed the required courses. In July, 2013, the territorial RNA removed the restriction from her license, her court document said.

But in January, 2014, the RNA began another investigation into McKeown’s work, the court document said.

And in March 2014, the nursing association’s professional conduct committee told McKeown that they would hold a hearing to decide on an interim suspension of her nursing license.

Two months later, the RNA temporarily suspended McKeown’s nursing license, and in October 2014, “purported to impose new conditions” on her nursing license, her court document says.

The originating notice does not state the nature of those new conditions. McKeown now lives in Thunder Bay, Ont.

None of the allegations in McKeown’s application have yet to be proven in court.

The January 2014 re-investigation by the territorial RNA appears to coincide in time with a flurry of emails sent among some regional health employees who were concerned about McKeown’s practices

Those emails are available to the public online.

According to internal government documents obtained by CBC, McKeown’s supervisor, Heather Hackney, was made aware of the nursing association’s investigation into her conduct, but CBC alleges that in 2012 no Nunavut government investigation took place into complaints about her practices.

In January 2014 emails, a group of Qikiqtani regional health managers agreed, among other things, to a “full investigation” of McKeown’s practices.

That included work with “RNANT/NU investigators.”

One email said that after complaints against McKeown emerged in 2012 and 2013, “there were no full investigations and appropriate management of the concerns brought to the attention of the director(s) of health programs responsible for responding to these concerns at the time.”

The email also said the GN’s employee relations unit halted investigative and fact-finding efforts in the summer and fall of 2013.

(“Employee relations” is a new entity created within the Department of Finance following the dissolution of the old Department of Human Resources.)

Recommendations to suspend or fire McKeown were also “overturned” by employee relations staff, the email said

The nursing association’s lawyer, Adrian Wright, has until the end of February to file documents with the court on behalf of his client, Justice Susan Cooper said in court Feb. 9.

Marshall is then expected to file an affidavit on behalf of his client, Cooper said.

The lawyers spoke to Cooper by teleconference. Cooper set the matter over until March 13 at 11 a.m.

Last November, Nunavut’s minister of health, Monica Ell, called for “an external independent review of the administrative processes of this case,” to be conducted immediately.

But a spokesperson for the department of health, Ron Wassink, told Nunatsiaq News Feb. 6 that the health department currently “is in the process of identifying potential candidates to complete the review.”

Wassink could not provide a timeline for the review.

Gwen Slade, a nurse who worked with McKeown at the Cape Dorset health centre, told Nunatsiaq News Feb. 4 that she herself filed 20 complaints against McKeown.

But in February 2012, when the territorial nursing station received complaints about McKeown, Slade found herself under attack from her employer.

A February 17, 2012 email from Peter Ma, then the deputy minister of health, informed the whistle-blowing nurse that she had been suspended with pay pending an investigation into allegations of “undermining your supervisor.”