'Stop killing people': Edmonton Remand whistleblower worried even after watchdog report, AHS changes

A health-care professional formerly based at the Edmonton Remand Centre says they still worry that people will die because of substandard care inside the northside institution.

That's even after Alberta Health Services (AHS) made changes to address what a watchdog report, publicly released on Wednesday, called "medical mistreatment" and "serious and significant wrongdoing."

"If they just stop killing people, that's all that I want," the whistleblower said during an interview with CTV News Edmonton.

"People were dying, and we're supposed to be health-care professionals. Not only were we not preventing deaths, we were causing them. And I say that as AHS at the Remand Centre."

The whistleblower no longer works inside the institution, but explained that they started sending emails in 2014 in an attempt to sound the alarm about substandard care they were witnessing while employed there.

Provincial legislation protects their identity in the interest of "honesty, openness and accountability," according to the website of Alberta Public Interest Commissioner Kevin Brezinski.

"I have emails from 2014 saying, 'people are going to die,' written to the managers. And my exact scenarios happened," the whistleblower said.

"Multiple complaints" were made in the years that followed because what they saw and heard, to them, amounted to management "incompetence" that was putting people at risk.

After being alerted by the whistleblower in 2020, Brezinski enlisted the help of an expert nursing consultant to review the medical records and treatment history of five patients.

Of the five cases Brezinski examined, four of the people went to hospital and two died.

'NURSING STAFF LITERALLY KILLED THIS GUY'

The whistleblower said the fatalities were especially hard to live with.

"[Remand patient] Eric Cabri had a pulse of 156 and was sent back to his cell because the nurse thought it was meth-related. He died the next day," the whistleblower said.

"Nursing staff literally killed this guy and everything was as-usual the next day."

The other case involved a patient whose "toe was black and swollen with fluid," Brezinki's report states, yet it took "two days for medical staff to begin treatment."

"He was writhing in pain for days. We did nothing for him and he died of sepsis," the whistleblower said.

They explained that because there are nearly 2,000 people in the jail at any given time, it's up to the charge nurses to call 911 when something urgent arises.

They said other staff often don't even know there's a problem because the centre is so large and segregated into pods.

"The problem is that nurses aren't competent to decide what is an emergency or what's not," they said.

There are no names of the incarcerated patients or the people who were responsible to care for them in the public report, but Brezinski concluded there was "inconsistent and arbitrary" treatment provided.

Brezinski noted that AHS was already aware of some of the cases and has already made improvements. He said the health authority was "fully cooperative" in his probe.

"I am encouraged by the organization’s commitment to improve the systemic issues identified in the investigation and focus on implementation of my recommendations," he wrote.

'OUR DEEPEST SYMPATHIES TO THOSE IMPACTED'

Since the complaint was made, AHS hired a new nursing professional practice consultant to ensure that rules are up to date, communicated and reassessed.

A spokesperson for AHS expressed its "deepest sympathies" to the people impacted in a Wednesday statement to CTV News Edmonton.

"It is imperative that all individuals in our corrections system are provided with the same consistent, high-quality care as every Albertan," Kerry Wiliamson wrote.

"AHS has taken action to directly address each of the recommendations included in the report. "

Alberta Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis repeated a similar statement to CTV News Edmonton on Thursday.

"All Albertans deserve access to consistent, high-quality health care when they need it," Ellis wrote.

"We appreciate the careful investigation completed by the Public Interest Commissioner and express our deepest sympathies to those impacted by the health care concerns within the Edmonton Remand Centre."

He said while AHS is responsible for the administration and delivery of health care in the province, his office will continue to work with the health authority to "support correctional health services that meet the needs of those that rely on it."

But even after the changes, the whistleblower feels medical staff at the institution are still ill prepared to deal with emergencies.

They said some of the charge nurses need more training in acute care, including mandatory certification in advanced cardiac life support.

"Some of the charge nurses are registered psychiatric nurses. They have no idea who has sepsis, who has pneumonia. That's not what their job is but that's what they're required to do," the whistleblower said.

Edmonton Remand Centre, located in north Edmonton at 184 Avenue and 127 Street, has a capacity of 1,952 and houses people awaiting trial.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jessica Robb