PART V – A Man of Many Parts
Epilogue
His Legacy
Dr. Deadman died as he had lived – intense, dedicated and patriotic with strong connections to his Canadian roots. Even in his last hours, he was concerned about his friends and his legacy. After his funeral, the tributes and messages from old friends flowed in. He was recognized some years later by a Medical Prize in forensic medicine that was set up through the Hamilton Civic Hospitals. Dr. Rex Ferris, the forensic pathologist spoke highly of him.
A quote said: “the true meaning of life is to plant a tree under whose branches you never expect to sit”. This exemplifies much of his work. In 2014, his family set up an endowment fund through the Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation that would fund forensic pathology students through their early training.
Bill left a department that was the largest in any non-teaching hospital in Canada. He and his chief technologist, Frank Elliott created a training program to train medical technologists from across Canada that was widely admired and it had regular visitors. The Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science (CSMLS) established training standards that are still in place today.
Bill’s research was impressive and a long list is in the archives that are being established in the Hamilton Public Library. His list of publications and accomplishments is shown in Chapter Fifteen. It is impressive and even after his death, we were getting requests for reprints.
He also followed world affairs and in several speeches, spoke his mind about the directions of the Canadian government, mostly critical. He was named ‘Hamilton’s Citizen of the Year’ for 1949. He was a fellow of many international medical organizations and a list of all these is in the Appendix.
After his death, the administrator of the hospital met with family members and extolled his virtues, promising to preserve his legacy. When Helene died, she gave his extensive writings and other memorabilia to the lead author and he was committed to completing the biography. When he was finally able to get at it, he went to various sources for information.
The New Forensic Pathology Unit
The Hamilton General Hospital had been completely rebuilt in the early 2000s. John found the forensic pathology unit was in a sub-basement of the new structure. He met the director, John Fernandes and other staff on the new unit. He found that the unit had been named in honour of his father but had almost no information on him in the archives. Somehow they had been lost in storage during the rebuilding.
John said that he had a lot of information and was willing to give it. He met another pathologist, David King who was retiring. When cleaning out his filing cabinet, he discovered a full envelope of press clippings about Bill’s career. We concluded that Helene had found them after giving the boxes to John and must have taken them over to the lab. They covered many sections in detail that covered the Dick trial and other activities. It was decided that the staff room would become ‘The Dr. William J. Deadman Memorial Room’. John had prepared a large poster that summarized Bill’’s life. It also is in the archives. At the opening, we invited many people who had known Bill and the room was crowded. John Fernandes gave a speech that was very warm and people enjoyed the refreshments.
Later Developments
John Fernandes had many disputes with the Chief Coroner of Ontario, Dr. Michael Pollanen. On some autopsies, Pollanen was not satisfied with the results and when Fernandes died of cancer in 2017, Pollenen announced that the Hamilton Forensic Forensic Pathology Unit (HFPU) would be closed on June 30th and all autopsies and inquests would then be moved to the new, large Coroner’s Laboratory in North York. There were many protests but Pollenen appointed a temporary director and told her that she could not be renewed. Dr. Chitra Rao was appointed as interim director with the clear understanding that she would not seek reappointment or challenge Pollenen’s decision.
There were many conflicts after Fernandes’ death. The newly appointed director of the HFPU, Dr. Jane Turner had autopsied a small child and had given the cause of death as bone disease. But a local expert had claimed that it was child abuse and Pollenen agreed. Dr. Jane Turner was fired and then sued the Ontario Government on the issue of the integrity of forensic pathology. She claimed that Pollenen intervened to change the cause of death to homicide. After the Death Investigation Oversight Council (DIOC) heard the case, it went to Divisional Court in 2019. The police testified that found no evidence of homicide. The battle played out in Divisional Court where it became a test of the effectiveness of the DIOC. The Divisional Court reserved judgment.
This created a firestorm of protests from local coroners from all areas around Hamilton and family members of the deceased who wanted to attend inquests now held in North York. Also, bodies for autopsy had to be transported to North York because Pollenin was not satisfied with the results in Hamilton. The issues had been referred to the Death Investigation Oversight Council (DOIC) but the Chief Coroner, Dr. Dirk Hewer ignored their report and they proceeded with the closure.
Problems
There were many problems in the HFPU. Several pathologists had come and left shortly after, stating that they would not advance their knowledge there. The Eastern Ontario Forensic Pathology Unit stated in a letter that Hamilton is not a sought after place for pathologists to work. They cited the number of pathologists who had come and gone.
This left John Fernandes to do an increasing workload and there were complaints that he was difficult to work with and the other pathologists on the unit were not sharing the load. When Fernandes died of Cancer in 2019, the number of autopsies, already large, simply overwhelmed the remaining staff. Dr. Rao appealed to Pollinan for help in getting more staff but this was also ignored. Dr. Jane Turner, a former director, had already filed a complaint to the DIOC. Dr. Elina Bulakhtina filed her own complaint against Pollinan to the DIOC and, when this was not responded to, launched a lawsuit through Divisional Court to have the decision overturned. This is still proceeding.
After that, things seemed to settle but the bitterness in Hamilton is still there. The previous forensic program became part of the Department of anatomical pathology at McMaster and continued to do autopsies but could not call inquests. And the complaints from police and from families continued to grow. Staff Sergeant Dave Olenik who had been working with the HFPU, also questioned why nothing was done to help the staffing crisis. He said: “Look, it’s inadequate. Well, it’s inadequate because you underfunded and understaffed it. It wouldn’t be inadequate if you had just kept it up all the time”. He agreed that it had become a personality battle between Pollinin and Fernandes. He butted heads with people like Pollinin and they didn’t like it. He suggested that it was a grudge match between the two and the decision to close the unit was because of this. Dr. Rao believes that this was unnecessary but it seemed that nothing could be done at this point.
However, the struggle continues. Bill Deadman’s legacy remains. The unit, with all its early accomplishments became the victim of a power struggle that played out where there were no winners and many losers. It is hoped that at some point in the future, when the present players have left the scene, that the HFPU will be restored.