VANCOUVER - Providence Health has been ordered to pay nearly $400,000 for the brain damage suffered by a troubled patient who tried to commit suicide in a bathroom at St. Paul’s Hospital.

Michael Paur was 36 years old when he tried to hang himself using a hospital gown at St. Paul’s on May 24, 2011.

His mother, Jaqueline Shak, sued the hospital for negligence in the incident. In a decision this week, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Susan Griffin found Providence Health vicariously liable for the actions of the hospital and the three nurses on duty that night.

“It would have been relatively simple and not too costly for (St. Paul’s Hospital) to design the bathroom facilities safely to prevent the risk of suicide by hanging; or, alternatively, to establish policies to mitigate the risk of a suicidal patient being left alone in the bathroom unmonitored for a sufficiently long period of time as to cause serious harm from hanging,” Griffin wrote.

She went on to say that while the nurses likely saved Paur’s life by discovering him before the hanging killed him, they failed to meet the accepted standard of care by keeping a close watch over him.

Paur was brought to the hospital by Vancouver police under the Mental Health Act, according to court documents. He had checked himself into a hotel room on a high floor after a fight with his wife, then called or texted her to say “Bye” before throwing his phone off the balcony.

He was drunk by the time police and paramedics arrived, having consumed a two-litre bottle of alcoholic cooler, two shots of whisky and 1 mg of the anti-anxiety drug clonazepam. When he arrived at the hospital in an ambulance, a doctor determined that he could be a danger to himself and his wife, and certified him under the Mental Health Act. Paur was kept in the Comox Unit of the emergency room, an area that is closely watched by nurses.

Two nurses were on duty and a third was on break when Paur locked himself in the bathroom and tried to kill himself. When the nurses found him, he was hanging, unconscious, from the ceiling tiles.

Paur had likely been hanging for more than five minutes, and his brain suffered a serious deprivation of oxygen during the ordeal.

Since the incident, he hasn’t been able to recognize his wife or remember his wedding. He has little memory of the entire decade prior to the suicide attempt and is easily confused.

However, he does have a part-time job at a mattress recycling plant, where he rips apart old mattresses with a box-cutter.

In her decision, the judge found that the suicide attempt likely reduced Paur’s life expectancy by 17.95 years. She ordered the health authority to pay him $355,300 for non-pecuniary damages, $5,594 for special damages, and $30,000 in an in-trust claim for the services his mother has provided.

Blindsay@vancouversun.com

Twitter.com/bethanylindsay

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