The September 28 meeting of the Wiseman Committee

The Wiseman Committee met on September 28. Much of the meeting was spent discussing post-operative care. Preliminary acceptance was given to what was referred to as the 'One Team - One Location Model.' Under this model, post-operative care would be provided in a single setting by a team that allowed the neonatal intensive care unit staff to participate. Further meetings with the heads of the PICU and the NICU, along with the respective nursing officials, were recommended.

According to the minutes as well, a number of cases were discussed, including one death (the Tena Capili case) and the ML case, in which the child was taken to the ICU in critical condition and had made a slow recovery. There was also discussion about the cancellation of a case, accompanied by a disagreement between those who thought that the program should take on all cases and those who wished to take a more conservative approach. The other issue of longstanding dispute discussed at this meeting was the treatment of post-operative bleeding. As in the past, committee members did not resolve their disagreement; nor did they agree on a particular plan of action on the matter, other than to treat all cases post-operatively in one ICU setting.

Youngson had prepared some notes on the Tena Capili case and had provided them to Wiseman before the meeting. At the end of the meeting, Wiseman pushed Youngson's notes forward on the table, to let her know that she should speak then if she wished to address the case. Youngson testified:

I just shook my head.

Because by that point in time, there was just no way I was going to say anything any more. I had seen what happens, I had seen some kind of unpleasant things at that meeting, or heard of unpleasant things happening at that meeting, and there was no way at that point in time that I was going to speak out any more. (Evidence, page 8,554)

The fact that Youngson did not speak out at this meeting about the Tena Capili case is an indication of the degree to which the nurses had been silenced by the review process.