Canadian Frank Papineau sues physicians Dr. Pablo Romero-Sierra, Dr. Johnny Brisebois in Ontario Superior court. Trial to start November 26th, 2018
[UPDATE: This case has now been adjourned (postponed) by the courts for 3 years!! They allege they do not have the judicial resources to hear this until then, then there will likely be another excuse.
Was this a political decision? How does this postponement compare to other adjourments?]
Nov. 12, 2018
Ontario, Canada resident Frank Papineau has had enough and is seeking redress from the courts alleging negligence against two physicians.
In the linked Statement of Claim it is stated that there was also a the claim against Kemptville District Hospital but the claim against the hospital was discontinued in early 2014.
The trial begins November 26th, 2018 and is slated to last 4 weeks indicating just how seriously this case is being taken.
Other Canadians with Lyme disease, their families, physicians, patient advocacy groups, and others not only in Canada but around the world will will be following this case with great interest to see if the courts can begin to offer protections for the abuse of thousands of patients by the current health care systems that have failed them so miserably.
Making this more significant is that it is taking place in Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, Ontario, under the nose of the federal Public Health Agency of Canada, and federal legislators that to date have done little to bring ethical treatment of Lyme disease patients to the offices and hospitals of Canada. Also situated in Ottawa is the multi-billion dollar Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA), a non-for-profit deep-pocketed fund that physicians have access to for the legal woes and costs.
This is truly a David against Goliath case where the physicians have this access to mega-millions of dollars for their defence, as opposed to any individual.
One has to wonder where the CMPA was while almost 100% of Canadian physicians, who appropriately diagnosed and treated Lyme patients clinically, were forced out of business or forced to stop treating Lyme patients simply because they chose to not follow very-restrictive opinion based (not science-based) guidelines imposed upon Canadian doctors via the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases of Canada (AMMI).
Previously an Ontario physician was sanctioned by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario for not following the terrible Infectious Disease Society of America guidelines imposed by AMMI. He appealed the decision to the Ontario Health Professionals Appeal and Review Board who sided with the doctor stating he did not have to follow those [dangerous] guidelines …
“The Board also finds that the Committee reached an unreasonable decision when it decided to caution the Applicant for failing to document the rationale for not following the recommended guidelines for treatment of Lyme disease. The Board notes that the Applicant’s consultation letter to the patient’s family physician, dated December 10, 2010, contained a detailed explanation for the treatment recommended by the Applicant.”
It is hoped that the court-room for the Papineau case will be filled with patients and patient advocates.
You can read the now-public Frank Papineau Statement of Claim here.
Of interest is also the report submitted by representatives of many countries including Canada to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in June 2018 following a report presented to the World Health Organization.in 2017.
I hope that this case will be the small coach that begins to let the light shine in and expose the corruption and misinformation spread by the Infectious Disease Societies who have for reasons unknown (arrogance or corruption) decided to overlook the scientific facts, and turn their heads on patients who suffer and die due to their negligence! We must stand up against this corruption.
Good luck in trying to bring this Tick-borne disease medical debacle to its knees and make these IDSA worshipers pay for what they have done not just for Canada. But as a precedent for the world.
This is fantastic! Like many Lyme disease sufferers in Canada, I have not been taken seriously by my local physicians either. They have completely disregarded my specialized lab testing and my classic Lyme disease symptoms.
Has a GoFundMe page been created to help with this defence? A guilty verdict is critical, as this will most Lyme sufferers across Canada.
I will be there …….. I was diagnosed after 4 years of pain. You guessed it …. Diagnosed in the USA, not Canada. This was two months ago. My family Doctor, hospital, and all the specialists admit they have no idea what started my problems. To name a few … PMR, vasculitus, aortitis, myocarditis, blocked renal artery, high blood pressure, constant pain, depression etc.etc.etc. I can’t count the number of diagnostic tests and blood tests I have had in this time frame.
Good luck in court …… I will be there
Robin
FINALLY!!!!!!!!
How can we support him?
Best of luck to you in this (hopefully), ground breaking, long overdue wake up call to our health care system, practioners, and “non believers” coast to coast!!
It is such a horrid disease! Wishing you strength and courage in your upcoming trial!!
Is someone able lead a support rally one of the days? I would even travel from Nova Scotia if we could get a large group because this will be so helpful to Lyme sufferers today and in the future.
what courtroom will the trial take place in? I would like to be there. Like most reading this article i have a vested interest in the process.
I was diagnosed with Chronic LD by a naturopathic doctor here in BC a few years ago by a blood test/Western Blot Test done in the USA bc it’s not tested properly here. My symptoms are chronic fatigue, irregular heart beat, neuritis and arthritis. Treatment by my naturopath has been expen$ive but effective and I am coping relatively well. I was able to get a referral to Infectious diseases specialists but was ‘poo pooed’ by them and the second one I saw was interested only in how much my naturopathic treatment cost. They didn’t do anything to help me.
I hope this court case gets results. It will open the floodgates of people suffering with chronic LD.
This story should be edited for clarity. “100% of Canadian physicians, who appropriately diagnosed and treated Lyme patients clinically, were forced out of business” is not at all accurate. In addition, the CMPA is an insurance plan, paid for by each physician, to cover legal costs in event of a public complaint. In Canada, members of the public can make complaints against any healthcare professional (MD, RN, RT, PT, Dentist, etc.) and that professional is then required to answer the statement in front of their regulatory college. Every HCP should have insurance, as many of the complaints are vexatious. The existence of the CMPA is not a conspiracy.
Is there any chance that this or any other proceedings can be viewed on line (outside of Canada) ?
Best wishes to all involved …. you are world advocates …. despite all your suffering along the way!
Thanks heaps …. wishing you magnanimous courage
You introduced this as a conspiracy theory, no one else.
Please clarify how the statement you claim is not accurate, is not accurate. Simply stating it is not accurate says nothing. You truncated your quote, “100% of Canadian physicians, who appropriately diagnosed and treated Lyme patients…” by eliminating the word “almost” at the beginning. Typical pruning of truth. Tell us what you know of the facts that we do not know.
This is a horrible disease that is to often misdiagnosed. It is sad that Canadians have to go to the USA to get a proper diagnosis. I will be there in the courtroom supporting my friend.
The medical community needs to wake up.
This is just the beginning of the wake-up call.
Share this with everyone you can. Get the word out.
Thank you for attending this and I so wish I could be there too…! I live too far away to be there, and I am busy being I an Lyme Literate FNP in Ithaca, NY. I would like to follow the case, so I hope someone will be writing postings on how it is going. Is there going to be a Facebook page?
Can someone PLEASE tell me where this court case is taking place?? I know it is in Ottawa but would like more specific information. My son has been suffering from this debilitating disease for 4 years and I’d like to be there if at all possible. If someone has a detailed answer please message me on Facebook.
In New Zealand are drs are so protected that they never have to pay damages for anything. We have the health and disability commissioner and if you lay a complaint all you get is an explanation and I’m sorry. They also have a huge fund to offer any form of legal assistance.
If the medical council finds them guilty then they could have conditions and terms put in them to continue practicing.
We have the ACC for accidents and very small payments if at all gets paid out especially when you have to prove what percentage if your body is affected and it is run by the government so anything like lyme may never be paid out.
My country is full of what we call an old boys network where if you pay my back I’ll pat yours across so many industries.
Drs, Police, Legal Representatives all collude together- mainly the older ones.
The younger graduates tend to leave NZ and head overseas .
I also have been trying to get exact details so that I can possibly plan to go! So far I have had no reply or details from anyone.
I’ve been sick 25 years. I lived at Charleston lake and worked at the Provincial Park for a couple of years. My boss told me to be careful of ticks because the ministry was starting to test for Lyme ticks back then. When I first got sick in 1993 I asked the doctor that I was seeing in Ottawa could this possibly be Lyme disease and he said if it were Lyme you’d be dead by now and I believed him because he was the doctor so I never pursued looking into Lyme disease. Most of the 30 some-odd doctors that I have seen over the years in Canada and the US and Australia all agreed that I do have something but nobody could figure out what it was. I did have a few doctors in Perth, Ottawa, and Brockville who dismissed my symptoms and my illness and said to ignore them and get on with life as if it was some sort of a psychological manifestation that I could choose. I even went to see a psychiatrist in Kingston hoping that I did have a psychiatric disorder because at least it could be treated. After 4 consultations with him he said mentally I was perfectly normal and that I was not unlike his cancer patients in that I do have something that’s causing an illness. I’ve been let down by the Ontario medical system time and time again. One of my old doctors even destroyed my records assuming that I wasn’t going to be moving back to Canada after I had moved overseas and they didn’t want to put my file onto a computer when they switched from paper to computers. I have served a life sentence with this illness and yet it could have been treated and cured with a month of antibiotics back in 1993.
I would like to attend…Where is the court case being heard / time ? Thanks, Dave
I am ready to march in Ottawa / court ….Dave
Perhaps the truth about Lyme disease (borrelia burgdorferi) will come out in a court trial. Key information such as bio-warfare facility on Plum Island, NY, creating and releasing borrelia; and the Dearborn Conference when they decided to change the definition of Lyme disease to swollen knees thereby ensuring the misdiagnsoses of tens of millions; or the LLMDs (lyme literate md’s) pushing high dose, combinations of antibiotics (abx) for years while knowing borrelia’s capacity to create post-sepsis syndrome/B-cellAIDS causing immunosuppression. Abx are not only useless but quite often harmful. Think about it years of millions of milligrams of strong abx in an immunocomprosed person! Or the vaccine, Lymerix, which should never have reached the market-created borrelia in those innoculated causing a life-long, life-threatening disease & these same people are trying to push another one on the unsuspecting public. Then there are the others-the lazy, uneducated, egoistic & often cruel docs who mislabel sick children with Munchausen syndrome (faking) it or misinform their mom’s saying borrelia cant be transmitted via the placenta (it can) so advise them not to bother using precaution. Or the millions of people being told their symptoms, their pain, their rapidly deteriorating health & struggle to walk is all in their heads. It isnt Lyme. Anything but Lyme. This is a pandemic that must be addressed and addressed properly. Those who committed research fraud (some currently sitting on the Tick-Born Working Group) need to be held legally & morally accountable, the Dearborn Conference decisions recinded along with all other corruption associated with this (Yale, SmithKline Beecham, the corrupt CDC who allowed it and kept silent, Allan Steere….the list goes on) They conspired, driven by ego, shallowness and greed, to ensure the genesis of a 21st century plague.
The delays in the Papineau case against his physicians may end up being a Charter of Rights case. Legislation has been introduced focused on the criminal justice system but the civil justice system does not seem to be given the same priority. This leaves those with legitimate claims against people or entities for other than criminal behaviour perhaps losing their Charter rights.
Here is a quote from the Law Times in Canada,
“Combined with a focus on criminal trials after Jordan, this means the backlog for civil matters just gets longer.
Civil delays cause major issues, primarily for those who have meritorious claims and are seeking enforcement of those claims.
Delays in justice may well mean the defendant reorganizes or goes bankrupt while a creditor waits.
It also means a defendant can deny the creditor money that they deserve for longer, or even forever, if judgment can be denied until bankruptcy.
The Charter does not explicitly provide for economic rights, such as a right to a fast civil trial.
However, if delays continue in the civil context at the current rate, there is a danger that a rights infringement may take place under s. 7 of the Charter — “7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
The civil justice method is the only legal way for persons to legally resolve conflicts within society, and it is a pillar of our democracy as well as justice system.”
….. Above quoted from…
https://www.lawtimesnews.com/…/speakers-corner-civil-delay…/
Bill 75 has been introduced, it has passed 1st and 2nd reading in the House and is now in the Senate Standing Committee of Justice and Human Rights. Bill 75 deals largely with reforms to the criminal justice system only.
The three year delay of the Papineau case has greater human good, human rights ramifications for thousands of sick Canadians being denied access to care due to a very flawed and controlled medical bureaucracy. The unreasonable 3 year delay may trigger a Charter case but that can also be a lengthy process
Jim Wilson
“The medical bureaucracy is a mountain of money, ego, privilege, opinion and corruption. Science and evidence are often ignored, hidden, or intentionally misconstrued. Together we the people can and will move mountains.” Jim Wilson
Are you looking for a clinic to visit- Toronto based P3 HEALTH Dr Tim Cook and integrative team will assess based on description of symptomology and recommended Armin Lab tests.
I can not find anything at http://www.canlii.org about this case – not by document number for the statement of claim, not by names. Has it been withdrrawn?
Caroline I feel the same way exactly, its been almost a year and treating physicians either say after the antibiotics borrelia is 100% destroyed or suggest they are not knowledgeable in the area of Lyme Disease. I am beginning to feel Canadians need to get together and seek out lawyers to form a class action against the government for damages of health and life reqarding the incompetent actions they have taken to treat thousands of Canadians presently suffering and ever growing in numbers.
With respect of the physicians they are between a rock and hard place because they wish to continue as there oath says to cure and reduce misery in there patients yet are hamstrung by the various governmental medical boards.
Why do these supposedly helpful MDs insist knowing what we Canlymies pay for our US diagnosis and or treatment??
The infectious disease specialist I saw told me that if a lab is testing for Lyme in the US they will keep on testing until they get a positive Lyme result…..very sad.
So many who suffer with this hideous disease cannot afford any kind of alternative treatment. So our not so helpful medical system instead dispenses addictive pain meds, sleep meds and often the good old anti depressants. Drug companies seem to be the big winners.
However in defense of the doctors, none wish to be sanctioned by breaking those faulty guidelines for Lyme. I was blessed to have a caring doctor who at least suggested to me that I might want to look toward eastern medicine as western medicine could do no more for me.