Patients need more protection from doctor abuse, says lawyer

A New Brunswick lawyer whose client was sexually abused by her doctor and then denied money from a fund that compensates patients harmed by negligent medical care says the case exposes dangerous holes in the protection the public has against unscrupulous doctors.

"Why wouldn't they (doctors) have the shame and enough courage to step up and say that was a bad apple that we had there, but no Mrs. Shannon has to take whatever they have to give her, which is absolutely nothing," said Shannon's lawyer Pete Mockler outside court Monday afternoon.

Shirley Shannon was manipulated into sexual acts by New Brunswick psychiatrist Dr. Kwabena Agyei Akuffo-Akoto in the mid 1990s who threatened to institutionalize her if she exposed the wrong doing.

A despondent Shannon eventually attempted suicide in 1997 by steering her car into an oncoming transport truck, sustaining serious injuries.  

That event revealed Dr. Akoto's conduct and triggered an investigation by New Brunswick's College of Physicians and Surgeons that turned up another patient with a similar story.

Akoto fled to Great Britain before he could be dealt with and was eventually stripped of his medical licence after being confronted with five more complaints there.

Shannon and her husband obtained a judgement against Akoto in 2004 for nearly $600,000 in damages and court costs and although he had mandatory medical malpractice coverage with the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA) required of all New Brunswick doctors the organization has refused to pay the award.

Only for negligent medical care

In court on Monday CMPA lawyer Ken McCullogh said the organization pays compensation only for negligent medical care, not the criminal acts of doctors.

"Is rape, rape a form of medical care?" he asked rhetorically. "Is forced oral sex a form of medical care?"

New Brunswick doctors are required to carry malpractice coverage as a condition of their licence and pay about $8 million a year to the CMPA to cover the legal costs of doctors facing malpractice or misconduct charges and to pay damages to patients injured by negligence.

About half of the payments to the CMPA are made by doctors with the other half paid by the New Brunswick government.

Mockler says the province thinks it is helping to provide blanket liability coverage and protection to the public, but Shirley Shannon proves that is not the case.

He says if the CMPA wins the case against Shannon, the province needs to act to protect patients more thoroughly.

"Doctors are practicing medicine in this province on what appears to be less than professional liability insurance," said Mockler.

"I think this situation has to have the government look at it. It's not right."