VICTIM OF ‘PRESSURE’
CHILD ABUSE EXPERT SUBJECT OF INVESTIGATION COMMITS SUICIDE
• A pediatrician under investigation for falsely claiming parents had abused their children is believed to have killed himself at the Montreal hospital where he worked.
“It is with great sadness we are confirming the tragic death of Dr. Alain Sirard,” Sainte-Justine Hospital said in a statement Tuesday. “We have lost a great defender of the rights of children who worked at Ste- Justine for several decades, who was also strongly involved in providing care and in the teaching of future pediatricians,” the hospital said in a statement.
Montreal police, who responded to a call shortly after 5 a.m., discovered the body of “a member of the hospital personnel” inside the building.
“It appears to have been a suicide,” said Constable Raphaël Bergeron, a police spokesperson, adding that no more information would be released about the death.
Montreal La Presse and RadioCanada reported in 2013 that several parents had accused Sirard of falsely claiming they had abused their children.
Caroline Langis, a spokeswoman for Quebec’s College of Physicians, said Sirard was being investigated by the medical body in connection with complaints by parents he had accused of abuse.
“Usually we don’t give out this kind of information but considering his case was so heavily in the media since 2013, we can confirm that an investigation was ongoing,” she said.
“It was about patients Dr. Sirard had seen at SainteJustine Hospital and the parents he had accused of abusing their children.”
She said the case will be closed now that Sirard is dead.
In Quebec City, Health Minister Gaétan Barrette commented briefly on the death of Sirard, who was 58.
“We’re talking about a doctor who died who was under intense social pressure,” he told reporters. “You have no idea what kind of pressure these professionals are under when public attention — which I would qualify as intense — is turned on them.
“I sympathize with this man’s family. When a person, whoever they are, commits such an act in these circumstances, well certainly I will sympathize with all of his entourage. In human terms, we have a man who worked in a difficult milieu, because there’s pressure when you practice medicine ... It’s sad that it ended this way.”
La Presse reported on Nov. 23 that the board of directors of Quebec’s largest pediatric hospital had reached a decision about Sirard.
Mélanie Dallaire, a spokesperson for Ste- Justine, declined to comment on what type of decision, if any, had been reached by the board.
“No interviews will be given,” Dallaire said in an email.
Sirard joined Ste- Justine Hospital in 1987. He worked in the medico- legal clinic as an expert on child abuse.
In April 2013, La Presse reported the concerns of a couple who claimed that Sirard had suspected without reason that their child had been the victim of abuse.
In November 2013, Radio-Canada aired a report about Sirard in which the parents of five families described the turmoil they experienced after they said Sirard had concluded, incorrectly, that they abused their infants.
Six days after that report was broadcast, Sirard was stabbed in the back while walking on a quiet residential street near his home on Nuns’ Island. Montreal police said at the time they had no suspect in the case.
A year later, Sirard launched a $ 475,000 lawsuit against Radio- Canada, claiming that the news organization had defamed his reputation. Court records on Tuesday showed that the case was still active, with the most recent hearing held in July.
On Feb. 23, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse released the result of its own investigation into complaints by parents who said they were suspected of abuse “by doctors at the ( medico- legal) clinic at Ste-Justine Hospital.”
The commission’s report, which didn’t name the doctors, examined the cases of 13 children from the perspective of the Youth Protection Act. During its investigation, the commission met with more than 70 people, including parents, doctors, nurses and social workers of Youth Protection Services.
The commission observed that “in some cases, the personnel at Ste- Justine overstepped their roles and prevented Youth Protection Services from doing their duty.”
The commission also found that “some children had undergone medical testing without parental consent or even refusal.”
“In all cases,” the commission concluded, “the parents said they perceived a form of disrespect and rudeness, as well as an obvious lack of courtesy towards them by some professionals of the medico-legal clinic.”