Nova Scotia family seeks accountability in bedsore death after criminal case ends

09/19/2019

The sister of a woman who died after she was admitted to a Halifax hospital with a severe bedsore says her family wonders how anyone will be held accountable now that police have dropped the matter.

Forty-year-old Chrissy Dunnington died in March 2018, seven weeks after entering hospital with a bedsore relatives said had created a fist-sized hole that reached her spine.

Her sister, Dorothy Dunnington, says the family filed a police report, claiming lack of proper care at the nursing home where she had been living amounted to a crime.

However, Dunnington confirmed today that Dr. Matthew Bowes, the province’s chief medical examiner, has determined the death was not a criminal matter, and that police have closed the case.

Dorothy Dunnington says that leaves her to rely on results of an internal report expected from the provincial Health Department under the Protection for Persons in Care Act.

She maintains that inquiries into deaths such as her sister’s should be carried out by an independent investigative arm in a different branch of government.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2019.

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