BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN
Sudbury Regional Police are investigating the bizarre circumstances behind the Dec. 30 death of a patient at St. Joseph's Health Centre on behalf of the Ontario Coroner's Office.
The patient was found dead outside the hospital early that morning, said Dr. Peter Clark, regional supervising coroner for northeastern Ontario.
?At the present time we are in the earliest stages of the investigation, but let me assure you that there will be a full investigation,? said Clark. No further information will be released at the request of the family, who want time to grieve, he said.
Staff Sgt. Bob Keetch said an officer from the force's criminal investigation unit has been assigned to the case.
"Basically, when someone dies in Ontario, the coroner's office sometimes asks police to assist them, or investigate the death on behalf of the coroner.
"There is no criminal part to this investigation, so we report to him about this death," said Keetch.
Uniform police officers and the forensic unit probably attended the scene of this patient's death, just as they are sent to the scenes of most sudden unexpected deaths, he said.
But Keetch would not say for sure whether or not this happened.
A spokesperson for Sudbury Regional Hospital said the hospital is co-operating fully with the authorities and will be lending any assistance that they can to the coroner's office..
"The first thing that happens when an incident like this takes place is the coroner is contacted, and then the coroner goes from there," said media relations officer Sean Barrette.
The hospital is also conducting its own internal investigation into the incident which will "ensure that appropriate hospital policies and procedures were adhered to that morning, but we're quite confident they were," said Barrette.
The hospital will be doing some "fact finding" about what happened, he said.
"Some questions obviously have to be asked when something like this takes place...Our policies and procedures...have been put in place for a reason. Now if they're found to be lacking, obviously we will review them."
