Article content

Kim Smith was no stranger to stress — her job in community corrections often brought her face to face with members of Winnipeg’s violent street gangs.

But as she lay in a local hospital’s gynecology ward more than a year ago, nurses called her brother with an unusual question: Did Kim suffer from any kind of emotional troubles?

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Infected and undocumented: Thousands of Canadians dying from hospital-acquired bugs Back to video

[np_storybar title=”Inside Canada’s secret world of medical error: ‘There is a lot of lying, there’s a lot of cover-up’” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/16/inside-canadas-secret-world-of-medical-errors-there-is-a-lot-of-lying-theres-a-lot-of-cover-up/”]

As Helen Church woke up one morning just before Christmas 2012, the pain that had been building for weeks behind her right eye reached an excruciating climax.

Screaming in agony, she ran around her east-end Toronto apartment before finally managing to call 911 and passing out.

For the second time in short succession, she had fallen victim to health care gone badly awry.