Vitalité ordered to pay $40,000 to nurse fired after workplace assault
CBC
New Brunswick's francophone health authority has been ordered to pay $40,000 to a nurse it fired in the aftermath of a brutal workplace assault.
Arbitrator Michel Doucet upheld a grievance filed by the New Brunswick Nurses Union against Vitalité Health Network over the November 2021 dismissal of Natasha Poirier.
The nurse manager at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton was assaulted by a patient's husband on March 11, 2019, leaving her unable to return to her job.
The decision, issued on Tuesday, says Vitalité violated the collective agreement by failing to make sufficient efforts to find another role or job for Poirier.
Poirier, who has published a book about her experience, says it affirms how she felt about her treatment by Vitalité.
"It gives me closure," she said in an interview Thursday. "I'm very happy."
Frédéric Finn, Vitalité's vice-president of employee experience, said in an emailed statement that the health authority disagrees with the arbitrator's assessment of its efforts to accommodate Poirier, but won't seek a review or appeal of the decision.
The nurses' union said it wouldn't comment.
Poirier was attacked by a man who wanted his wife moved to a quieter room in a unit Poirier managed.
Bruce (Randy) Van Horlick pulled Poirier from her chair by her hair, punched her on the temple, threw her against a wall, twisted her arm and several fingers backward, and assaulted another nurse, Teresa Thibeault, who tried to intervene.
The 11-minutes attack left her with a brain injury, daily chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.
Van Horlick was sentenced to six months in jail in 2020. Poirier sued the 74-year-old, who was ordered to pay her $1.3 million. Poirier has said she has not received any money.
She was receiving benefits through a WorkSafeNB claim after the attack while on medical leave. The arbitration decision says Vitalité covered an additional $4,000 of Poirier's expenses that weren't covered by WorkSafeNB before opting to stop the payments.
It's a step that frustrated Poirier, and led to an October 2020 email in which she wrote she had lost confidence in Vitalité.
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