Come clean now

When nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer was charged last October with murdering eight elderly people in long-term care homes, it was only natural that the public would want reassurances the system is safe.

But four months later the College of Nurses of Ontario is keeping mum on the role it played — or didn’t play — in protecting patients.

That is unacceptable. How it does its job of regulating the profession is clearly a matter of public interest.

As Jane Meadus, staff lawyer at Toronto’s Advocacy Centre for the Elderly legal clinic, says: “Their job is to protect the public and we need to know that they have done their job.” Disturbingly, right now that is unclear. As the Star’s Sandro Contenta reported on Wednesday, the college was informed that Wettlaufer was fired from Caressant Care in Woodstock, Ont., on March 31, 2014, for a “medication error” that put the life of a resident at risk.

Yet she continued to work as a registered nurse for another 21⁄ years, until she was charged last 2 October.

So far the college will only acknowledge it is investigating Wettlaufer now. It won’t say whether it investigated her back in 2014.

That information is key, considering Wettlaufer is accused of killing 75-year-old Arpad Horvath at a London nursing home, trying to kill a nursing home resident in Paris, Ont., and trying to kill again while providing in-home care after she was reported to the college in 2014.

The public can only trust the system when it can clearly see it is working properly. It’s time the college came clean and explained itself and its procedures.

The public can only trust the system when it can clearly see it is working properly