Sex abuse led to changes

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This article was published 19/11/2014 (3444 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government revamped its policies at all city hospitals while staying silent — to both the public and the police — about the fact a provincial employee had sexually preyed upon a patient with mental illness.

New details about the case emerged Wednesday in a series of legal documents reviewed by the Free Press. These include a three-page report from the assistant deputy minister of provincial policy and programs with Manitoba Health.

The November 2011 document includes a finding that a Seven Oaks Hospital employee, Christopher Loane, had committed a major breach nearly one year earlier and was improperly trained. It led to his immediate termination.

“There is evidence the patient was subjected to sexual abuse by the respondent who was a staff member during her hospitalization and that this abuse has caused the patient harm,” the report states.

The report noted that while there is mandatory mental-health orientation for nursing staff that includes information on boundaries, no such policy existed for support staff such as nursing assistants and ward clerks, such as the accused.

As a result, an immediate change was ordered. Hospitals were told to “develop and implement an educational strategy for professional boundaries and include all direct-care staff who work with psychiatric boundaries.” They were given a deadline of 100 days.

There was, however, no recommendation the case be forwarded to police or justice officials for review. That didn’t sit well with the victim of the incident, who filed a lawsuit against both her attacker and Seven Oaks Hospital in 2012.

Responding only by email, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said it had no legal obligation to alert police to the sexual abuse. Instead, it is standard practice to advise a patient of their right to file a report to police.

“In this case, this was done. The WRHA feels it is essential to respect this as an individual’s decision, and the WRHA would certainly support and co-operate with any such referral should anyone decide to file an incident with police,” a WRHA spokesman wrote.

The WRHA said Seven Oaks immediately suspended Loane and notified the Protection for Persons in Care Office (PPCO). While a PPCO investigation was underway, Seven Oaks conducted its own probe. That resulted in Loane being placed on leave in February 2011.

The Selinger government was equally unforthcoming Wednesday.

Rookie Health Minister Sharon Blady was not made available for comment. Instead, the province said the matter was referred to the PPCO and noted again the victim was made aware of her right to pursue criminal charges.

In her detailed affidavit filed earlier this year, the woman, who is now 43, singled out the hospital for “failing to contact police or other authorities.” She said the incident, which occurred during her 16-day stay in December 2010, was brought to the attention of hospital officials in “late 2011.”

“I decided to bring this to Seven Oaks because I was fearful that something like this would happen to someone else in my position,” the woman wrote.

Seven Oaks Hospital reached an out-of-court settlement this week with the woman, just as the matter was set for hearing. Terms of the deal were not disclosed to the court.

Loane was ordered to pay $43,000 in damages and legal costs to the woman. He was found liable after failing to respond to the statement of claim or show up in court. His current whereabouts are unknown, despite efforts by the woman’s lawyers to locate him, which included hiring a private investigator.

In her detailed affidavit, the woman described her long-term battle with bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression and alcoholism. Her marriage was also crumbling, and this led to a panic attack at work in December 2010. She admitted herself to the psychiatric ward at Seven Oaks, which is when the incidents began.

“I recall feeling significant feelings of mania,” she wrote, noting it was a common symptom of her illness. “I recall feeling extremely high and above it all at this time. The mania also caused me to experience increased feelings of sexuality and attraction and to feel less inhibited, often causing me to make radical and poor decisions.”

That’s when Loane entered the picture. As a ward clerk, he was responsible for “non-medical assistance of the patients such as organizing recreational activities and retrieving personal belongings,” the court documents state.

Loane began accessing the woman’s file and had full knowledge of her condition and symptoms. He passed himself off as knowledgable about what she was going through, which the woman said was “extremely comforting.” He then gave her his phone number, smuggled her a cellular phone in a stack of newspapers and began exchanging texts that became sexually explicit.

‘I had absolutely no regard for my personal well-being, feeling as if nothing mattered, and turned again to heavy drinking as a way to self- medicate. Even driving by the hospital caused me to feel incredibly anxious and upset. I continue to struggle with these feelings on a daily basis’

— patient who was abused

“Shortly after he smuggled me my phone, he sent me a message saying he was falling in love with me,” the woman wrote.

Loane picked her up when she got her first day pass from the ward. They had sex inside a car in the parking lot of the hospital.

“Throughout my stay, he told me he loved me and we would be together forever,” she said. One week before Christmas, the woman was given another day pass on the guise of visiting her friend. Instead, Loane drove her to a liquor store, bought her alcohol and took her to a Portage Avenue hotel where she got drunk and they had sexual intercourse.

Three days later, they did the same thing at a different hotel following several hours of drinking.

“Her vulnerability was pretty clear in these circumstances,” the woman’s lawyer, Kathleen Coutts, told court this week. “There was a clear power imbalance.”

The woman was discharged from Seven Oaks on Dec. 20 and said Loane ceased all contact with her. She tried texting him, only to get an angry message back from his common-law wife.

“This was the first time I had been made aware of the fact he was in a relationship,” she said.

The woman said she began to realize what had occurred and fell into further despair while battling feelings of “depression, shame and grief.”

“I had absolutely no regard for my personal well-being, feeling as if nothing mattered, and turned again to heavy drinking as a way to self-medicate,” she wrote. “Even driving by the hospital caused me to feel incredibly anxious and upset. I continue to struggle with these feelings on a daily basis.”

She eventually disclosed the abuse to her teenage son and her estranged husband before contacting hospital officials.

“The episode with Loane has completely derailed my life,” she wrote. “On more than one occasion since the incident I have contemplated, and even fantasized, about suicide.”

The woman has moved out of the province, saying she feels too much “humiliation and grief” as a result of what she went through.

The WRHA said it has no knowledge of any other allegations made against Loane.

www.mikeoncrime.com maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca