A nurse who cut off an Elder’s braids while he was in an Edmonton hospital will not face any discipline according to an email to the family from the College of Registered Nurses of Alberta (CRNA).
Dexter Adams, 84, who lived with dementia and was in the Royal Alexandra Hospital waiting for a bed in a long term care facility, had his braids cut off without the family’s knowledge.
They told APTN News in an interview at the time they believed the nurse didn’t understand the cultural significance of the braids to Adams, a day school survivor.
According to the email shared with APTN, the CRNA ruled that there are no grounds for a complaint hearing against the nurse.
“We are only able to assess the conduct of individual registered nurses and nurse practitioners, and determine whether they rise to the level of unprofessional conduct,” says the college’s conduct counsel, Stacey McPeek in an email to Crowe. “We are limited to the facts and evidence that we have. In this instance, I believe that we lack evidence of unprofessional conduct related to this specific registrant for a hearing.”
McPeek makes several points as to why the complaint against the nurse won’t go forward.
“There was a witness present that confirms the Registrant’s version of events, that initially your uncle denied consent to a hair cut and then later provided consent, that the patient chart listed your uncle as his own decision-maker, and that other personal care appears to have been provided for which your uncle consented and there appears to be no concern with him having provided consent to that,” McPeek’s email states.
McPeek also notes that while the family cited dementia as a reason his consent to the braid cutting was not valid, “from a medico-legal perspective (dementia) does not mean that the individual cannot consent to personal care.”
“My concern remains that the above evidence makes it very unlikely that allegations of unprofessional conduct would be proven at a hearing,” says McPeek.
Adam’s niece, Kathleen Crowe, said she’s heartbroken.
Crowe says the family has “nowhere” left to go to seek justice for their uncle. And while they’ve been waiting, Dexter’s widow Eve has passed away from cancer.
“There is absolutely nowhere to go with this,” she says. “Given that my uncle passed away before the filing of the human rights complaint, the Alberta Human Rights Commission does not have any legislation to address a complaint filed posthumously.”
Crowe also says there’s no entity to hear a complaint against the hospital. AHS said in an email to APTN last December, that info sessions on the Cultural Significance of Hair for Indigenous Peoples were held at the hospital after the incident. An internal investigation was also conducted, but AHS said the results wouldn’t be disclosed because it was a confidential HR matter.
Crowe initially spoke out in early December, 2024 about how her uncle was treated. She related how her uncle went downhill quickly after the incident where his braids had been cut off then tossed in a garbage can on top of a dirty diaper along with bear grease they’d been using to groom his hair. An eagle feather was also thrown out.
“And again, this morning, I got another phone call just asking if we had photos of the braids in the garbage,” Crowe says.
Crowe asked the hospital for the nursing notes. She says when she received them, the notes from around the timing of the hair cutting were missing from the hospital.
McPeek says in the letter that CRNA can’t do anything about “the actions of the hospital or lack of hospital policy” as they fall outside the jurisdiction of the CRNA. “However, this does not mean that we lack the opportunity for intervention to try and address the conduct.
“Conduct that is not provably unprofessional can still be an opportunity to intervene and for the registrant to learn from,” McPeek says.
But that doesn’t give Crowe much comfort.
“I feel that there’s no safety in health care. There’s no recourse. There’s no accountability. And, personally, I feel so powerless. Like, if we enter the hospital, anything can happen, and there will be no accountability for it.”
Crowe says they have also not heard back from the Edmonton Police Service (EPS)about its investigation of the incident as a possible hate crime.
An EPS spokesperson says their investigation continues and they may have more to share in the weeks ahead.
link