The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor A dispute between Dr. Krishan Sethi and the NRHA remains unresolved nearly a year and a half after the health authority hurled a string of allegations against the award-winning physician. Asked last week whether the NRHA board has reached a decision on employing Sethi, who until late 2008 worked at the Flin Flon General Hospital, CEO Helga Bryant said the matter is still open. 'There are numerous steps in this process and as laid out in the medical staff by-laws,' she said. 'The activities related to those processes are continuing as delineated by the medical staff by-laws.' Sethi's lawyer, Bill Haight, provided no additional details. 'I can't add anything to what the NRHA has stated, that the process is still in motion and at this point in time, nothing (more) can be reported,' he said in a phone interview from his Winnipeg office. At the NRHA annual general meeting last fall, Bryant told the public a three-physician committee that heard complaints against Sethi had received all of its information and was in the process of deliberating. Recommendation This group, known as the Regional Medical Advisory Committee, would in time provide the NRHA with its recommendation for a resolution, the public heard. Taking the recommendation into account, the NRHA board would then vote on the matter. At the annual meeting, Bryant had no timeline as to when that vote would take place, but she said she hoped the advisory committee would make its recommendation around December of last year. On Oct. 8, 2010, the NRHA revoked indefinitely Sethi's hospital privileges, though he maintained his personal practice on Main Street. The NRHA accused Sethi of a string of misdeeds, including financial impropriety, requesting health information without a patient's written consent, and starting surgeries at inconsistent times. After taking the NRHA to court in December 2010, Sethi, who has denied wrongdoing, won back admitting privileges for his patients at the hospital. But, for the time being at least, he is no longer an employee of the hospital as he had been previously. As part of the 2010 ruling that restored Sethi's hospital privileges, a judge ordered that the complaints against the physician be heard by the Regional Medical Advisory Committee. Sethi, whose accolades include prestigious awards from the Society of Rural Physicians and the College of Family Physicians of Canada, has practiced in Flin Flon since 1980.
