Contradiction over moving of death investigations

Solicitor general, ministry and chiefs offer conflicting accounts about forensic pathology closure

Ontario’s solicitor general said forensic pathology is being shut down at Hamilton General Hospital because the death of the unit’s leader last April left an overwhelming backlog of cases.

“As a result of the untimely death of the leader in Hamilton, we had to make some decisions,” Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said during question period at the legislature Thursday.

Her statement is significant because it directly contradicts her own ministry’s claims that the decision was made in the fall of 2018 — long before a Hamilton-based complaint was lodged March 4, 2019, against Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Pollanen, and chief coroner, Dr. Dirk Huyer. And before the death of Dr. John Fernandes.

It’s also the opposite of what Pollanen and Huyer told The Spectator in an interview July 4 after forensics staff found out about the shutdown just days after some of them testified to the Death Investigation Oversight Council (DIOC).

“This was an operational decision that was not directly related to his death,” Pollanen said at the time.

The conflicting accounts of why nearly 1,400 death investigations per year are moving to Toronto reignite questions about how the subjects of a complaint could close a whistle-blowing unit while the investigation was ongoing.

“The minister is just spinning any tale that she can grab a hold of because there is no justification for this closure whatsoever,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, also MPP for Hamilton Centre. “There has always been a suspicion of the circumstances around this decision.”

Ministry spokesperson Brent Ross tried to defuse questions about the motive for closing the Hamilton Regional Forensic Pathology Unit (HRFPU) by maintaining the decision was “made prior to the receipt of any complaints.”

Even when pressed about statements Pollanen made to The Spectator that there was no decision to close the unit as of December 2018, Ross didn’t waver.

“The first complaint was filed with DIOC in March 2019. The operational decision to close the unit was taken in fall 2018, which predates the submission of the complaint,” Ross said in a statement July 26.

But Jones’ answers to questions from Sandy Shaw, the NDP MPP for Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, suggest the decision was actually made over a month after the complaint was filed and at least six months later than the ministry’s timeline.

Jones has been called on to halt the closure by Horwath, Mayor Fred Eisenberger and former unit director Dr. Jane Turner, who filed the complaint.

But the year-long decommissioning is continuing with cases from Niagara scheduled to move to Toronto on March 1 — despite the DIOC recommending an independent external review of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service (OFPS).

More checks and balances of the OFPS were also among its 13 recommendations in December in response to Turner’s complaint, as well as a second filed in July by Hamilton forensic pathologist Dr. Elena Bulakhtina.

The Office of the Ombudsman of Ontario has also been contacted about the HRFPU. The DIOC recommendations came on the heels of a scathing auditor general’s report that concluded the OFPS and the Office of the Chief Coroner “does not have effective processes to demonstrate that its coroners and pathologists consistently conduct high-quality death investigations, and does not sufficiently analyze data or follow up on the implementation of its recommendations to improve public safety to help prevent further deaths.”

That report suggested the decision to close the unit came in July “due to staffing and other operational difficulties.”

The Spectator obtained documents showing Hamilton Health Sciences turned to Pollanen for help after Fernandes died of colon cancer on April 18, 2019, asking for a short-term secondment while two pathologists were recruited.

Instead hospital leaders were blindsided June 14 last year when they were informed Pollanen and Huyer were closing the HRFPU and transferring half of the cases to Toronto by July 2019 with the rest following over the next year.

The documents also show that the DIOC was not consulted about the decision despite being responsible for giving advice on financial resource management, strategic planning, quality assurance, performance measures and accountability mechanisms.

“We needed to make sure that those forensic investigations were done in a timely manner,” said Jones.

The obtained documents allege there has been multiple complaints from stakeholders and families regarding outstanding cases at HRFPU that delayed insurance payouts.

“We need to make sure that the police, the families and everyone engaged needs to have very efficient and very quick returns when we are doing those investigations,” said Jones.

However, quicker turnaround was not the experience of Det. Sgt. Peter Thom of Hamilton’s major crime unit, who said in December that the decision to send the body of 17-year-old Joshua Leo to Toronto delayed the autopsy by two days and hampered the homicide investigation.

“It’s already a disaster,” said Horwath. “It’s completely the opposite of what any reasonable person would assume the solution would be. If the unit is overwhelmed you provide it more resources. If the unit is heavily utilized, the last thing you do is shut it down.”