Doctors Accused Of Battery Refuse To Release Hospital Patient

seniorsatrisk.org
ARTHUR needs your help. Since this video clip ran on CBC- CHEX Peterborough on Thursday, Oct 3, 2013, the Ajax Pickering Hospital - Rouge Valley Health System lawyers have gone ballistic and are threatening CHEX with a lawsuit and to file a complaint with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

However, the hospital and their lawyers have not refuted a single fact that was broadcast about this story.

So what is their complaint? They accuse the reporter of having lied about whether she had a recording device with her. Whether she did or did not, there is nothing wrong or illegal for anyone, including a reporter, to have a camera in a hospital. The reporter did not take pictures of any staff or visitors, as she was instructed. This seems to be an attempt to bully and silence the media. The TV Station halted broadcast of Part 2 of Time to Die which had been scheduled to air the following night, Friday, October 4th.

WHAT DOES THIS HOSPITAL HAVE TO HIDE that it would threaten a lawsuit about the video taken of Arthur and his wife in his hospital room? No other parts of the hospital were shown, except the exterior, which is fair game. Permission was given by Arthur’s family to shoot the video in his room. Nobody has the right to tell a patient he can have no photos or video taken of themselves! Nobody else inside the hospital was filmed, only Arthur himself. The rest was filmed in his own home… again, fair game.

The hospital apparently believes that it has the absolute right to censor people who disagree with the treatment they are receiving, but this is not the case: the hospital has no right to gag anyone, nor to muzzle the media when their actions are in question! It is our feeling that if the hospital were to see that there are many people who want the truth told, and who want Arthur and his family to be able to exercise their lawful right of informed consent as well as the legal Power of Attorney which both the hospital AND the court have acknowledged is valid, they will back away from this ridiculous, horrendous fight to keep Arthur under their “care”.

THIS IS WHAT THE ROUGE VALLEY HEALTH SYSTEM SAYS ABOUT THE HOSPITALS IN ITS SYSTEM: rougevalley.ca/hospital-accountability It seems they don’t practice what they preach – you be the judge.

Hospital Accountability

One of our core values at Rouge Valley Health System is being accountable for our resources, our services and our behaviour. This includes being accountable in the way that we deliver care to our patients, as well as to being open and transparent with our community. Learn more about how we are living this value everyday at our hospital.
Learn more

Access to information: We strive to make information available to you as proactively as possible.

Privacy statement: Rouge Valley abides by internationally-recognized practices and legislation to protect personal health information.

Code of ethics: We are committed to treating our patients in a manner that is consistent with our vision, mission and core values.

Accessibility: Rouge Valley strives to create an accessible health care environment.
Financial: At RVHS, we are accountable for our resources, our services and our behaviours

Please help to protect Arthur from these health “care” providers who think they can completely take over the life and well-being of patients against their will and declared intentions…. Please write, email, tweet, or post a Facebook entry about this story.

Also please send comments or emails of support to CHEX TV. Their owner Corus Communications needs to know that the public supports the good journalism being practised by CHEX TV journalist Pamela Vanmeer.

HERE is a sample letter or email, which you may copy and paste (or substitute your own words or concerns), or use bits of it in tweets or on Facebook posts. If you want more information about this story, and to read actual court and hospital documents please go to http://www.seniorsatrisk.org/2013/10/doctors-accused-of-battery-refuse-to-release-hospital-patient/

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I/we am/are extremely disturbed by the Ajax-Pickering Hospital’s attempt to muzzle CBC-CHEX Peterborough and their reporters in their coverage regarding Mr. Arthur Hippe, a stroke victim and a patient in their care.

I have learned that following the broadcast of a video report outlining the story of the struggle to ensure Mr. Hippe’s right of informed consent to his treatment as well as his right to designate a substitute decision maker under the law, the hospital threatened the CBC-CHEX station with a lawsuit complaining that CHEX videotaped inside the hospital, despite the fact that no hospital staff were shown, and nothing but Mr. Hippe and his wife at home were videotaped, with their full permission. This is contrary to the hospital’s stated rules, which indicate that staff may not be photographed at their duties, nor can cameras be operated generally on the wards.

The hospital’s threatening stance on this leads me/us to believe they have something to hide. Since public funds are used to sustain hospitals, as well as to pay for treatments, this hospital owes their accountability to the public, and cannot be allowed to run roughshod over those challenging their behaviours. Indeed their own standards include full accountability, and as such,
require this hospital’s response to its treatment of Mr. Hippe: the hospital is either accountable, or it is not. If it is accountable, it should be prepared to defend its actions, not attempt to silence its critics with threats of legal action!

All Canadians depend on their health care system to serve and protect them from harm. In any situation requiring accountability, health care professionals owe a duty to Canadians to have integrity, honesty, and accountability. Here we see a hospital seemingly covering its tracks by threat and coercion, not with integrity, not with honesty, and not with accountability.

I/We call upon you now to enforce Mr Hippe’s rights as a patient and a Canadian: stop the hospital’s attempt to make a problem disappear by sweeping it under the rug, and tell them to honour patient rights, as well as Canadians’ right to know. Our dependency on the health care system makes it critical that absolute trust be maintained between patients and physicians, and no-one can trust physicians who obfuscate the truth with threats and coercion.

seniorsatrisk.org