The CYA policy of Izaak Walton Killam Hospital For Children (IWK Health Centre)

This is my first rant. I don't often lose it, but an article that came out today has caused me to want to yell and scream and in my advancing years I am giving myself permission to speak out.

I am a strong advocate for respectful patient care, and have spent years on volunteer boards, health committees, in hospitals and in the community. The spirit of human rights laws implies respect for the individual.

I am calling out the above named hospital, because I've really had enough of the CYA (cover your a$$) policy that is so rampant as to be insulting and beyond ridiculous.

Someone has to speak out against this. No, not against the strip search per se, but against the failure of Sir Izaac Walton Killam Hospital for Children in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and its CYA policy. Maybe by exposing this utter cr*p for what it is, others might take note.

Perhaps you remember the story of the girl who was raped six times and the pics were posted online. Rehtaeh Parsons then became the tortured victim of merciless bullying until she took her own life. Her story has received wide coverage and it is a sad one.

There have been a few threads about it on ATS. link to them

However one incident has come to light that makes my blood really boil.

Does any sane realistic person buy into the hospital's pathetic excuse? When you think of hospital personnel, which gender readily comes to mind? Women, right? So how can a hospital expect to be even slightly believed when they give the excuse that there were only men around to conduct a strip search on a very vulnerable Rehtaeh, the same young girl who was the victim of multiple rapes and online bullying after the pictures were posted online? Utter dribble and bloody nonsense!

It makes me so angry when respect for the individual is not front and center in every single intervention! Rehtaeh Parsons was in the mental care ward after going to the ER because she was having a very hard time dealing with the bullying and degradation. Sweet Jesus, who wouldn't? Shortly after admission she apparently learned how to cut herself. There was suspicion that she was hiding a razor blade on her person, and thus the reason for the strip search.

Ok let's stop at this point, when there was the possibility that she could be hiding a blade.

Where was the care plan for dealing with this type of event? Where was the respect for the individual? Where was the much-needed sensitivity and compassion for this particular very tortured human being?

She was apparently acting out and being disruptive. So? Let her bang a cupboard or slam a door. Decompression can be quite helpful. I know how violent people can be when acting out and have no doubt that in a safe protected environment they can and do act out and let loose. They usually take it out on objects like furniture as opposed to people though, unless provoked. But for the hospital to say there were no women available for a strip search?

***Give me a bloody break! ***

Call the supervisor, the patient rep/ patient advocate, her doctor, borrow staff from another ward or floor for a few minutes. Anything is doable, call her mom to help as a last resort, but to give such an excuse is flat out unacceptable. Period. No excuse. None. Not a single one. None at all.

Gosh I wonder how much more depersonalized that unfortunate girl could have felt when stretched out on the floor to have her clothes removed from her by two men? Is anyone wondering why she was driven to commit suicide? This is not care, this is control police tactics, and even then, the police have policies for women to do strip searches on women.

Her father is asking for an apology from the hospital and says he regrets bringing her there. Her parents are really suffering. And I suppose because it fears being sued, the hospital is piping out this CYA nonsense, when any basic code of ethics would tell them to do the right thing.

I just fail to understand this CYA mentality that permeates society. When something is flat out wrong, that's what it is: Wrong. Those who conducted the search were acting in an unprofessional manner. If they make such decisions to go ahead without considering respect for that individual, then I seriously question their professional competence, and so should their representative professional associations. I wonder if they really did it to subdue her, even a power trip. Well, it's a fair question to ask in view of this incident, isn't it?

For this hospital, it's time that CYA policy of theirs was put farther down the list, way below their supposed policy of good patient care. To do so, let them apologize to her parents and let the lawyers handle any possible fallout.

RIP Rehtaeh. You sure did not deserve to be treated in that way.

Link to article about this

Most rant threads are usually just spiteful name calling, but that needed to be said OP

reply to post by VoidHawk


Thanks for reading it. I just really wanted to get it off my chest. I am crying for her parents who are only wanting an apology.

Not sure if you are from the maritimes or canada . This is something I have been noticing the constant degrade in how public run facilities is the lack of respect for any human being , be it in a hospital , police , courts , politics , schools . Maybe it has always been there but the older I am getting the worse is seems to be getting and more frequent.

i hope many people read this thread and express their disgust as to whats happening there . best thing i think we can do is to shame these people into reform . nothing else has worked maybe we need mass shaming protests at all levels

Unfortunately, this is what happens when you let the damn lawyers take over the world. Common decency and common sense go out the window. Nobody can admit they made a mistake or their employees crossed a line ever because it may subject their company to some type of liability.

In a perfect world, those clowns who strip searched the girl would have been fired and probably charged for what they did. In our lawyer-run world, they are instead protected by their employer who's more afraid of losing a few bucks than doing the right thing.

Nobody can admit they did anything wrong anymore, even if it was an honest mistake, all because the lawyers screwed everything up.

reply to post by freedomSlave


I live in central Canada. I was admitted to hospital from the ER a couple of years ago and I was well treated despite how run off their feet they were. I think most people really try hard to do the right thing, but when there is a problem, we have to speak up.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Thanks for your post. You got that right. The fear of being sued seems to knock their morals and common sense right out the window. I cried for her parents and I still do. It really breaks my heart to know they have had to go through even more suffering like compound interest on their pain, when it could have been avoided. Lawyers figure too prominently in institutional and corporate thinking.