Bad Luck, Too Sad: No Comment

"While we understand that a criminal charge involving someone at our hospital is a highly distressing occurrence and will create a good deal of anxiety for our community, the charges result from a police investigation to which the hospital is not a party."
"This matter is in the hands of the justice system and as advised by our legal counsel the hospital will not be making any further statements about this matter."
Karen McGrath, president, chief executive, Georgian Bay General Hospital, Midland, Ontario

"I didn't really understand what could have happened. I was just going by what I was told. You take them at their word, they're the professionals."
"She was begging me for relief. She said she was dying; that's what it felt like, that she couldn't breathe."
"And I guess they had her on life support. I'd like it to get resolved and find out exactly what happened and why. I'll go to court next month and see what happens."
"She was a great mother and a great wife and everybody loved her."

"Deanna and I were so in love and now she’s gone and I have to live with the what if’s every day for the rest of my life."

"My boys and I deserve answers. I am hoping someone will help us find those answers and prevent such horrible mistakes from happening in the future."
"Obviously something went wrong. A healthy 39-year-old woman doesn’t go in for a half-hour knee scope and die thirty-six hours later."

"Somebody obviously made a mistake, as far as I’m concerned."

Mike Leblanc, Midland, Ontario

"This is a complex investigation. To preserve the integrity of this investigation and the pending case before the court, no further information will be released."
"There is no threat to public safety."
Inspector Ron Wheeldon, Midland Police Service

"This is the first time in Canada or the United States that criminal charges have been laid -- that I know of -- against a health-care provider for withdrawing life support from a patient."
"It is pretty clear the law in Canada requires consent to withdraw life support."
"It must seem to the investigating officers, and I assume a Crown attorney, that there is no ethical grey area in this one."
"Why did she do it? That's the $64,000 question."
Mark Handelman, health law lawyer, Toronto

handout photo   Deanna Leblanc, 39, died in Georgian Bay General Hospital on March 2, 2014. On Thursday, in what one legal expert called an "unprecedented" move, Midland police charged nurse Joanna Flynn, 50, with manslaughter for terminating Leblanc's life support without authorization. Here, Leblanc is seen with her husband Michael and her sons Mathew, 18 (right) and Daniel, 15.

Deanna Leblanc had undergone a simple surgery to repair her knee in late April of 2014. She had undergone arthroscopic surgery on her knee cartilage. During surgery tiny instruments are inserted through small cuts to examine and make corrections to a joint. The procedure was conducted at Newmarket General Hospital. It was a half-hour operation, and she returned home the same day. That was a Friday.

The following day she seemed just fine. She was in recovery and everything appeared normal. Then she awoke about 3:00 a.m. after Saturday night slipped into Sunday morning, and she was in agony. her husband recounted. He called 911 and an ambulance took his wife to the Midland hospital, 160 kilometres north of Toronto. When he arrived at the hospital she was undergoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

He waited in the emergency room for results. And hours later he was informed that his wife was dead. She had been placed on life support, with a breathing apparatus. And his wife was now dead. Admitted to one hospital for a simple operation on an out-patient basis, admitted to another hospital when she was suddenly overcome with excruciating pain that heralded a massive decline in her health, and nothing could be done to save her.

But she was on life support, so decisions would have to be made on the basis of professional medical advice about expectations of possible recovery -- or not. And then, suddenly again, there were no consultations to take place, no decisions to be made, because his wife had been taken off life support. A situation had occurred that had been unauthorized. He had no knowledge of it at first, in fact. The hospital undertook to review the circumstances of the death.

What they discovered prompted them to call police. And as police took charge of the further investigation, 50-year-old nurse Joanna Flynn of nearby Wyevale, Ontario, suddenly fired from the hospital staff came under suspicion. She was, in fact, charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death. Although police began working on the case within days of the death, it took 13 months to lay charges. 

There is the mystery why a dedicated, well-respected nurse would have taken the initiative to remove a patient from a respirator that was keeping her alive. Only the family could make that decision, and only after consultation with the health professionals looking after the patient, when it would have been made clear that the patient was well beyond hope of resuscitation. But here, mysteriously, a nurse that had just gone on duty at the ICU made that fateful decision.

And then there is the matter of the original surgery, a simple surgery, professional performed in a half-hour at a reputable hospital and the patient later in the day discharged to recover at home. A young, physically active woman with two young boys, a busy schedule, a love of sports and dancing, living a normal life in a happy family, suddenly dead. 

Results of the autopsy released to Mike Leblanc several months earlier informed him that it was revealed his wife had acute pneumonia, blood clots in her lungs and a condition named as disseminated intravascular coagulation where blood clots are created throughout a person's small blood vessels, and another question arose. How this morbid internal collapse could take place as a result of a simple knee surgery.

Mr. Leblanc is now preparing to launch a law suit against the hospital that performed that simple knee surgery that led to his wife's collapse and death two days post-surgery. For their part, Newmarket-based Southlake Regional Health Centre issued a statement through their spokesperson: "We have just become aware of the events related to this case as reported in the media. We recognize that this is a tragic and difficult situation for all involved. It is not appropriate for Southlake to comment at this time."