The Hospital for Sick Children is being accused of a cover-up after it refused yesterday to show a University of Toronto panel documents on controversial research involving a drug company.
"What is being hidden here?" researcher Nancy Olivieri asked at a news conference on the first day of her long-awaited grievance hearing against the university. She was supported by the university's faculty association. "What is being denied a fairly appointed university panel?"
The hospital told the grievance-review committee that it had filed a challenge in Ontario Superior Court in response to disclosure requests from the faculty association. The documents are related to a controversy involving Dr. Olivieri over research for Apotex Inc., a multinational drug company.
"We view it as confidential staff information to do with payroll and things like that. We wouldn't hand it over to a third party without questioning the validity of why they would have jurisdiction," Cyndy DeGiusti, the hospital's chief of public affairs, said in an interview.
The grievance hearing stems from a 2½-year-old complaint by the university faculty association on behalf of Dr. Olivieri and four colleagues: Brenda Gallie, Peter Durie, Helen Chan and John Dick.
Dr. Olivieri, a hematologist, was doing research at the Hospital for Sick Children on deferiprone, an experimental drug for patients with a rare blood disorder called thalassemia. The research was sponsored by Apotex, the drug's manufacturer. When she attempted to publicize results that deferiprone was not as effective as predicted, Apotex threatened her with legal action to enforce a confidentiality agreement she had signed.
She charged that neither the Hospital for Sick Children nor the University of Toronto properly supported her, either legally or morally, in her dispute with Apotex. The other four doctors allege that they were harassed and punished when they spoke out on the matter.
Formally, however, her grievance is against the university, not the hospital. Michael Mitchell, the faculty association's lawyer, describes the hospital as a third party to the grievance, owing to its affiliation as a university teaching hospital. He said the university supports the request for disclosure, but "quietly," and he would like to see a more aggressive stand.
The university was unequivocal in supporting the call for disclosure, spokeswoman Sue Bloch-Nevitte said, but "we can't control the Hospital for Sick Children. They're a separate corporate entity."
But Ms. DeGiusti said the grievance hearing has nothing to do with the hospital, pointing out that "the faculty association has no standing in the hospital." The hospital's affiliated status means that "medical students use the hospital -- it does not mean that the hospital is a branch of the university. We have 5,000 employees, and about 150 of them are cross-appointed."
She said it is ludicrous to accuse the hospital of a cover-up, adding that it investigated the matter in 1998 and has posted the results of that investigation on its Web site.
Sean Fine