Sue For Recompense

One physician, operating her own clinic laboratory, able to wreak such havoc upon a community. Her lax oversight of those whom she employed has been responsible for thousands of former patients who had undergone a number of routine medical investigative procedures to have been hugely inconvenienced. Let alone that these trusting people were caused great concern.

People ordinarily assume that when they're attending a medical clinic that it is routine that all medical investigative tools and surgical instruments undergo sterilization to ensure that no pathogens are carried forward from one patient to another. The transmission of germs, bacteria and potentially lethal diseases is readily enough accomplished without neutralizing their capacities to infect.

It is understandably awkward for people to question health professionals with respect to the level of expected hygiene and safety standards practised by them. No one wants to offend someone who is a respected medical professional, particularly for fear of creating a situation where that individual may be less than professional in subsequent treatment of their condition.

Even health professionals themselves have confessed to feeling awkward and uncomfortable in questioning members of their own profession when they themselves must undergo treatment. Yet the public is encouraged to emphatically do so on their own behalf. And to possibly raise the ire of someone who doesn't appreciate having his/her medical-health credentials and integrity questioned.

In a routine investigation of the Carling Avenue endoscopy clinic operated by Dr. Christiane Farazil, it was found that technicians had inadequately and routinely failed to observe proper cleansing techniques when using medical equipment. Thus, potentially placing patients at risk of exposure to Hepatitis B virus, Hepatitis C virus, and/or HIV; all infectious, reportable, high-risk diseases.

Ottawa Public Health's medical officer of health, Dr. Isra Levy, was placed in the position of having to investigate the public health implications of the situation, and compelled by his mandate to mail letters to patients, and to staff a dedicated information line to cope with the crisis. It was repeatedly stated, reassuringly, that the potential for infection was extremely low.

That assurance did little to reassure people who were horror-struck by the news that a fairly routine health procedure they had undergone up to a decade earlier, might have placed them in danger of becoming HIV-positive. And while the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons is investigating Dr. Farazil, she may legally continue practising.

This careless practitioner, solely responsible for the high state of anxiety that so many people in Ottawa were exposed to, through the laxity of hygiene procedures to ensure no transmission of grim diseases could occur, still has privileges at Montfort Hospital. Her clinic has been closed, but she may continue working at an approved facility with qualified staff.

Her gross mismanagement of her clinic has cost the public $750,000. A sum difficult to credit. But attributed to the need to investigate the laboratory clinic, send out mailed notifications, and staff a dedicated information line. How these seemingly simple yet emergency procedures could end up costing the public almost a million dollars is mystifying, and infuriating.

If Dr. Farazil has practise insurance, as indeed she surely must have, she should be sued through her insurance, for precisely that amount.