ER wait death prompts call for inquest funds

Relatives of a man who died last year during a lengthy wait in a Winnipeg hospital emergency room are seeking additional government funding to participate in the inquest examining his death.

Brian Sinclair's relatives say the government has not offered sufficient resources for them to participate fully in the inquest and they are threatening to boycott it.

The Sinclair family was in court Tuesday asking Manitoba's chief justice to intervene.

The province has offered the family $40,000 for a legal aid lawyer for the scheduled 53 days of the inquest, plus $800 for each day it goes beyond that.

But lawyers for Sinclair's family saidthiswould average out to about $23 an hour. The familysaid it's discriminatory because lawyers for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and the province are being fully covered by taxpayers and there is no cap on their salaries.

"The current proposal is inferior, inadequate and discriminatory," Murray Trachtenberg, the family's lawyer, argued. "Despite every effort undertaken by the Sinclair family they have been stonewalled."

Trachtenberg pointed to previous inquests where the province has provided funding for families.

Waited 34 hours in ER

Sinclair, a 45-year-old double amputee with a speech problem, was found dead in his wheelchair after spending 34 hours in the Health Sciences Centre's emergency department waiting room in September 2008.

Sinclair arrived at the emergency room Sept. 19 after being referred there by another physician. Security tape footage, disclosed by the province's medical examiner, showed Sinclair went to the triage desk and spoke to an aide before wheeling himself into the waiting room.

About 33 hours later, someone in the waiting room approached a security guard saying they believed Sinclair was dead.

An autopsy determined he died as a result of a blood infection brought on by complications from a bladder infection, whichitself was caused by a blocked catheter.

Sinclair's death could have been prevented had the blood infection been treated, Manitoba's chief medical examiner, Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra, said within days of the death. Balachandra announced in February that an inquest would be held.

Family frustrated by fight for funding

Sinclair'sdeath was "shocking enough" withoutthe subsequent fight for funding, Trachtenberg said Tuesday.

"The Sinclair family is not only disappointed, frustrated and disheartened, but they are shocked as well," he said of the eight-month fight for adequate funding.

"Brian Sinclair had a short and hard life filled with discrimination and inferior treatment. In the end he was killed by inferior treatment,"added Sinclair's cousin Robert Sinclair, who speaks for the family.

"We cannot accept the same kind of discrimination and inferior treatment from the government after Brian's death."

The inquest, scheduled to start Jan. 11, is expected to touch on a number of issues at the heart of Canadian health care. It must also determine why Sinclair died and what can be done to prevent similar deaths.

Provincial court Judge Ray Wyant has been named to head the inquest. He asked the family and the province to work out their differences in the summer, but they haven't reached an agreement.

The province has argued it isn't required to provide any funding for outside counsel for victims but decided to do so in this case. It says $40,000 is adequate and wasn't intended to cover the travel costs of three Toronto lawyers and an articling student, as requested by the family.

In the summer, then-attorney general Dave Chomiak called the family's wishes a bit "over the top."

In court on Tuesday, lawyers for the Sinclair family and the provinceagreed that Wyant would likely only be able to make recommendations, not force the government to give the family more money.

Wyant reserved his decision, saying hemust look at the law to determine what kind of ruling he can make. He would not say when that might happen.