Family sues MUHC after woman dies from routine surgery

A family is suing the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) to try to get some answers after Audrey Glan, 33, died following what was supposed to be a routine surgery.

Three years later, there are still questions about what led to her death and some aspects of it are disturbing.

Glan and her husband, Yannick Hebert, wanted children but she needed to get an operation to fix an anomaly on her fallopian tubes if she wanted to get pregnant.

"And then when I got to the hospital, I was met by three doctors and that's where they told me that there were some little complications. They were a little worried because she didn't have oxygen for 45 minutes going to her brain," Hebert told CTV News.

He would soon be asked to take her off life support. Hebert was never told the exact cause of death or why there were complications until a coroner got involved.

According to Hebert's lawyer, both the coroner and the College of physicians found important inconsistencies in Gran's medical record.

"The information contained in the medical record itself is very problematic because there are a number of significant contradictions, even between the time of the beginning of the surgery, the time when the complication occurs," said Patrick Martin-Menard, a medical malpractice lawyer for the family.

Hebert says the answers came in the form of an anonymous letter from a hospital staffer, blaming the doctor for ignoring signs that liquids were accumulating during the surgery.

None of these allegations have been proven in court yet.

They're all contained in a $1.4 million lawsuit against the MUHC. The hospital wouldn't comment on the legal aspect of the case but denied it failed to respond to the tragedy.

"An incident report and a note written by the anesthesiologist were indeed produced. An evaluation report from the quality department was also completed. Subsequently, several recommendations were implemented," the MUHC said in a statement.

But for Glan's husband, that is not an explanation.

"If, in the very beginning we had answers we were looking for, they said, 'You know what? We dropped the ball. Something happened,' maybe we would not have done a lawsuit. But to me, to the family, it was probably the only way for us to get answers," he said.