B.C. Women’s Hospital allegedly accepted photocopy of altered cheque as only ID for fake nurse | 24CA News

When a serial fraudster with a protracted historical past of impersonation utilized for a nursing job at B.C. Women’s Hospital, directors accepted a duplicate of a cheque that had been altered with Wite-Out as her solely identification, new courtroom paperwork allege.

An exhibit filed final week in a proposed class motion lawsuit in opposition to the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) claims that Brigitte Cleroux was not required to provide authorities ID when she utilized for a job on the Vancouver hospital in June 2020.

“The defendant accepted a photocopy of a personal cheque from Cleroux where she had whited out her name at the top of the cheque and handwritten the name Melanie Smith, as confirmation of Cleroux’s identity as Melanie Smith,” reads a discover to confess sworn in B.C. Supreme Court on Nov. 24.

The discover is a set of alleged info that consultant plaintiff Miranda Massie has requested PHSA to confess to be true.

It goes on to allege that nobody at PHSA took the time to examine or confirm the references Cleroux had listed in her falsified resumé.

Scott Stanley, the lawyer who represents Massie, informed CBC that the well being authority has declined to confess to any of the allegations within the discover.

PHSA has not responded to requests for remark.

Massie’s proposed class motion lawsuit alleges negligence by PHSA for hiring Cleroux and holds the well being authority accountable for battery and breach of privateness. 

In its response to the unique declare, PHSA denies that it ought to have recognized Cleroux wasn’t a professional nurse or that her deception ought to have been found with due diligence. It says the well being authority was additionally a sufferer of fraud and didn’t authorize any of Cleroux’s alleged crimes and misconduct.

Criminal historical past for impersonation

Cleroux has by no means held a nursing licence, however during the last twenty years, she has been accused or convicted of pretending to be a nurse in Colorado, Ontario, Alberta and B.C. She’s additionally posed as a trainer in Alberta and Quebec.

In all, the 50-year-old from the Ottawa space has amassed at the very least 67 legal convictions as an grownup.

She is at the moment dealing with 17 legal prices, together with allegations of assaulting 10 sufferers whereas posing as a perioperative nurse at B.C. Women’s Hospital from June 2020 to June 2021.

Cleroux at the moment sits in an Ontario jail, serving a seven-year sentence for posing as a nurse at two Ottawa clinics in the summertime of 2021.

According to parole paperwork, Cleroux has used greater than 20 aliases to commit fraud during the last three many years.

When she was employed at B.C. Women’s Hospital, Cleroux was calling herself Melanie Smith, the title of an actual nurse who labored at Vancouver General Hospital however was on maternity go away on the time, in response to the discover to confess.

Cleroux additionally supplied a registration quantity, however when hospital directors looked for it with the College of Nurses and Midwives of B.C., it got here again as belonging to a different registered nurse, not Melanie Smith, the discover says.

It goes on to allege that inside one month of working on the hospital, one other nurse had raised issues “about Cleroux unsafely discharging a patient with low oxygen levels,” and an anesthesiologist had complained about her utilizing “unnecessary force” on one other affected person.

PHSA has already admitted that Cleroux was the topic of a protracted listing of complaints throughout her time in Vancouver, together with “inappropriate” conduct towards coworkers and was briefly suspended with out pay for sooner or later in December 2020.

‘My IV was not even in my veins’

Along with the discover to confess, quite a few affected person affidavits have been filed final week alleging that PHSA ought to be accountable for the hurt Cleroux brought on to them.

One lady wrote in her affidavit that Cleroux was chargeable for inserting an IV in her arm to supply a painkiller throughout surgical procedure — a course of that “was extremely painful and felt as though she was stabbing me with a sharp pencil.”

The affected person goes on to say that she was in “extreme pain” all through the surgical procedure as properly.

“After the surgery, a post-op nurse checked on me and told me that my IV was not even in my veins; it was stuck in my muscle and therefore not getting the painkiller effectively into my system,” the affidavit says.

Another affected person, who says she is a pharmacist, writes in her affidavit that Cleroux ignored her issues about being delicate to opioids and injected her with a “huge dose” of fentanyl that brought on her respiration to gradual to a dangerously low fee.

“She kept calling me a ‘lightweight,'” the affected person alleges.

A 3rd lady’s affidavit says that when Cleroux tried to attract blood from her earlier than surgical procedure, Cleroux pricked her with a needle quite a few instances and “blood was squirting everywhere, and it was very painful and disturbing.”

None of the allegations have been confirmed in courtroom, and the lawsuit has not been authorised as a category motion.

Cleroux’s subsequent look in Vancouver provincial courtroom on legal prices is scheduled for Jan. 11.