The Canadian Way

In December last year an express train derails in northern Japan, killing four people and injuring 33. Within hours Mutsutake Otsuka, president of Japan Rail East Company, calls a press conference. “We apologize for causing the extremely serious accident,” he told reporters. “To fulfill our responsibility as a railway operator, we’ll fully investigate the cause of the accident and prevent a recurrence.”

Earlier in 2005, Japan’s worst train crash in more than 40 years kills 107 people and injures more than 500. Takeshi Kakiuchi, president of West Japan Railway Co., took responsibility and announced he would resign at the beginning of February.

This astonishes me – not that trains derail, but that people, including company presidents, immediately step up to the plate to take responsibility, apologize and then resign. What a concept; it seems to be the way things are done in Japan, but we handle things a little differently in Canada. Take note of the following:

• An inquiry into the scalding death of Jubilee Lodge resident Jennie Nelson was told Edmonton paramedics reported “she had burns from her feet to her waist and the skin was peeling from her feet to her knees. She was bleeding from her toes and flailing violently.” Medical examiner Dr. Bernard Bannach found that “the burns played a direct role in Nelson’s death.” A woman’s life was cut short and she died horribly. Were charges filed? Was anyone held accountable? That’s just not the Canadian way.
• Eighty five year old Zena Spina was mismedicated with Glyburide, a diabetes drug she wasn’t prescribed, and rushed to hospital. After six days to recover she was returned to the Heritage Green Nursing Home in Hamilton, where she was mismedicated again with the same drug two days later and later died in hospital. It takes investigators nearly four months to uncover how this happened. Consequences? Police won’t file charges because they could find no evidence of foul play. Responsibility? The administrator requested that the two nurses, who were working for outside agencies to cover weekend shifts, not return to the facility. Isn’t that just ducky? I’m sure that’s such a comfort to the remaining residents of the home and their families. Again a life was cut short and someone died a miserable death – and again, no one was held accountable. Just doesn’t seem to be the Canadian way.
• This from the Kaiser Daily HIV/ AIDS Report: Roger Perrault, former director of the blood transfusion service of the Canadian Red Cross, has been charged with four counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and one count of common nuisance endangering the public for his alleged role in a scandal in the 1980’s and early 1990’s in which nearly 2,000 people contracted HIV and an estimated 12,000 to 27,000 people contracted hepatitis C contaminated blood and blood products. However Perrault, who is 68 years old and has had a heart attack and undergone an angioplasty and bypass surgery, had applied for the charges to be stayed on the grounds of poor health, a move that would have effectively withdrawn the charges before any evidence was presented.

What are Canadians to think? ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ or ‘All of the responsibility with none of the accountability?’ France had the same tainted blood scandal, only there people went to jail, all the way up to the minister of health.

In the interest of Canadian nationalism, I have to differentiate us from our brothers and sisters to the south. In the United States, disputes used to be settled by gunfights at high noon; now they just sue. If William Shakespeare was an American living in the US today, he would write ‘Cry havoc and let slip the pitbull lawyers.’ In the northern ‘kinder, gentler society’ (sounds like a toilet paper ad), it’s duck and cover, call out the spin doctors or just stonewall any problems.

So what to do? March on Parliament demanding change? No, but we should recognize that we’ve evolved into a society where people have power but no accountability. This is pervasive from the lowest paid nursing home aide to the prime minister’s office – to paraphrase Paul Martin: “Adscam? I had no idea where the money was going. I was only the minister of finance and just signed the cheques…”

Seniors are physically and mentally brutalized and their money and valuables stolen every day in this country by the very people to whom they have entrusted their health and safety – family and staff members. All too frequently the response is ‘we’d rather handle this internally,’ meaning ‘we’re gonna sweep it under the rug’.

As young children, most of us were told the story of ‘the little red caboose that saved the train.’ Its lessons, so clear to children, have been forgotten by many adults. Keep this in mind the next time you are faced with an important decision, like deciding whether to take an extra second to check the water temperature or double check the med list, for example.

The investigation into the tainted blood scandal showed hundreds of people knew there was something wrong but did nothing and signed off anyway. People who should have known better. One day, maybe tomorrow – maybe next week – you will be in the position to make the right decision. Do the right thing.