Doctor blamed for outbreak claims charges are political
A lawyer representing a New Brunswick doctor accused of being patient zero in a deadly COVID-19 outbreak accuses the province of proceeding with a prosecution to politically protect Premier Blaine Higgs.
“The premier wanted to put blame on someone,” said defence lawyer Christian Michaud on behalf of Dr. Jean Robert Ngola.
“I have evidence in the file that shows that the laying of the charge was made at the request of the premier,” Michaud told Postmedia. “The premier has to be held accountable for what he does.”
Ngola is pleading not guilty to violating the provincial Emergency Measures Act by failing to self-isolate for 14 days after travelling out of the province.
His lawyers are fighting for more disclosure on the matter, including documentation from the Premier's Office, public health agency, and the RCMP, before a trial scheduled for June.
That schedule means the prosecution will take place one year after an outbreak of COVID-19 raged in Campbellton, a city of 6,500 in northern New Brunswick. The outbreak came just as the province was reopening. There had been no new cases for more than two weeks, and no COVID deaths.
Unravelling that effort was frustrating and blame was quickly placed on Ngola, a family doctor of Congolese descent who worked at Campbellton Regional Hospital.
At a press conference at the time, Higgs blamed the outbreak on an “irresponsible” health-care worker. The RCMP said officers were investigating.
It set off something of a witch hunt.
A laboratory worker who saw that Ngola had tested positive for COVID-19 told her husband, who then identified the doctor on social media, Michaud said. Racism fanned the flames of outrage and the proverbial pitchforks came out. Racial abuse and threats were furious, he said.
“The RCMP had to protect him, from their own actions, because he was getting death threats. He had to leave the province because he was getting death threats,” Michaud said.
Two other things happened. Further testing cast doubt on Ngola being the cause of the outbreak, Michaud said. There were three tests done — the first came back positive, the one that was leaked on social media, but two subsequent tests were negative. The findings of a blood test then went missing for 86 days, Michaud said. When the result was found, it was inconclusive.
“The outbreak was not caused by this doctor, it was caused by others,” Michaud said, although that, like all allegations, has not yet been proven in court.
The RCMP did drop its criminal probe and, instead, Ngola was charged by the province under the Emergency Measures Act, which is a regulatory offense, not a criminal charge.
This, too, became public, Michaud complained. He suspects it is political. “The premier took it upon himself to be almost like a prosecutor/RCMP agent. You can't do that. But he did it and now we're left with it. He made a mistake and now his people are trying to protect him.”
A request by Postmedia to speak with the premier's office was returned by a spokeswoman from the Department of Justice and Public Safety.
“We do not comment on matters before the courts,” Coreen Enos said in an email. A call to the provincial prosecutor's office was not returned, Tuesday.
Ngola did leave the province during the lockdown. He drove to Montreal to pick up his young daughter, because her mother was travelling to Africa to attend a funeral and needed care.
On his way home, he stopped in Trois-Rivieres, Que., to speak with two medical colleagues. They remained socially distanced for safety, said Michaud.
Ngola did not quarantine after his trip because, Michaud said, “he was led to believe by a person of authority” that as an essential service worker, if he had no reason to suspect he might have contracted COVID-19, he should return to work. Ngola was perplexed when his first test came back, he said.
The outbreak was an emotional landmark for the province.
It brought New Brunswick's first COVID-19 death, an 85-year-old resident of a care home. Some 40 people were infected in the outbreak and two died.
“I have evidence in the file that shows that the laying of the charge was made at the request of the premier.”
Christian Michaud Lawyer for Dr. Jean Robert Ngola