Eastern Health refuses to confirm or deny it employed imposter nurse

Eastern Health is refusing to confirm or deny it employed a Bonavista woman who posed as a registered nurse for more than two dozen shifts at a long-term care home in Gander.

The province's largest health authority said in a statement late Friday afternoon that discussing individual cases would breach the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

That runs counter to the response from two of the other health authorities, however, with Labrador-Grenfell Health and Western Health indicating that Lisa Driscoll was never employed by them. 

On Wednesday, Central Health issued a late afternoon advisory about a woman who was employed as a registered nurse at Lakeside Homes, a long-term care facility in Gander. Driscoll, 43, worked a total of 25 shifts between August and November. While she once held a licence as a practical nurse, she no longer is one, and was flagged in a publicly available list by the Ontario College of Nurses as practising without a licence. 

• N.L. woman who allegedly faked nursing licence was jailed in Ontario over 4-year-old son's death

CBC News later learned that Driscoll, who also goes by Lisa Strickland, was convicted in the death of her son. She was living in Hamilton in 2017 when her four-year-old son, Kane Driscoll, was found dead in her home. Police charged Strickland with manslaughter in 2019, but she pleaded down to criminal negligence causing death. She was sentenced to 2½ years in prison on Jan. 15, 2021, but with credit for time served, she only spent 75 more days behind bars.

Solutions Staffing in Vancouver, which is contracted by Central Health, hired Driscoll. The company has yet to respond to repeated requests for comment from CBC News. 

In a statement, Labrador-Grenfell Health said Driscoll was never employed within its facilities but said it has hired nurses supplied by Solutions Staffing — however, not anymore.

To date, four registered nurses and five licensed practical nurses from the agency have worked for the northern health authority. 

A spokesperson said the contracted agency is responsible for validating an employee's proof of education, licensure, certificate of conduct and vulnerable sector check from the police. 

"Following the public disclosure by Central Health regarding an unlicensed agency nurse having practised in that health region, Labrador-Grenfell Health took the additional step to review the onboarding documentation of all agency nurses," the spokesperson wrote in an email.

"All documentation has been reviewed and validated for 2022."

Labrador-Grenfell Health said it has cut ties with Solutions Staffing but isn't ruling out the use of agency nurses altogether and acknowledged they "fulfil an important role in our care team."

Western Health said Driscoll never worked at any of its facilities. The health authority said it will now validate identification and licensure of travel nurses.

Eastern Health, however, would not confirm nor deny that Driscoll worked in its facilities. 

Instead, the authority cited the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which it said requires the authority "to protect personal information from unauthorized disclosure and cannot comment on any individual case."

Health Minister Tom Osborne declined an interview request but in a statement said the government is "concerned with this isolated incident." 

'Dropped the ball'

Opposition parties in Newfoundland and Labrador say this case is an indictment of the government's reliance on private industry. 

"You can point the finger at the staffing agency, but at the end of the day Central Health selected that agency," said PC health critic Paul Dinn, adding the provincial government should have strong legislation to ensure such situations do not occur.

"The ball was dropped here and no one seems to want to take ownership of it."

Jim Dinn, interim leader of the NDP, called for a human resources strategy to manage the staffing crisis. 

"We're relying on these private firms. We can see clearly one of the major gaps [is] that we're basically trusting ourselves to them as opposed to a publicly funded health-care system, and publicly owned that's answerable to the public," Dinn said.

"In the end, that's the system we've got, that we've got to look at fixing."

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador