Health region sues doctor for leaving Shoal Lake

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This article was published 13/12/2023 (745 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shoal Lake’s former physician, Dr. Kayvan Alamian Harandi, who left that community before his four-year contract was up, is being sued by Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) for $144,000.

A member of the local health committee in Shoal Lake says it was a big loss when Harandi left. The doctor was well liked, according to Murray Solomon.

“Dr. Harandi is a very fine gentleman, and he had his own reasons for leaving, and I have to respect that,” Solomon said.

Harandi started working in Shoal Lake in October of 2019, seeing patients at the Shoal Lake-Strathclair Health Centre and Hamiota Health Centre.

Under a return of service agreement he signed with PMH in 2018, Harandi agreed to work as a general practitioner until the end of March 2023, but he left in September 2022, according to a statement of claim filed Dec. 1 in Manitoba Court of King’s Bench in Brandon.

The health region is seeking $144,385.60 in damages for the financial assistance it provided in the form of a loan.

With the loan, Harandi – who is originally from Tehran — was able to take a medical program for international medical graduates at the University of Manitoba.

It’s a one-year training course that would give him the licence to practise medicine in Manitoba, according to the lawsuit.

Harandi was paid every two weeks by PMH, and in return, he agreed to repay the loan by providing medical services as a physician in the Shoal Lake and Hamiota communities on a full-time basis for four years, stated the court documents.

The lawsuit also stated that if Harandi failed to fulfil the agreement, he would be required to repay the loan, plus any interest.

The allegations have not been proven in court, and no statement of defence has been filed.

The Sun reached out to Harandi for comment, but neither a phone message nor an email was returned by press time. He is working at McPhillips Medical Clinic, which is about 15 minutes northwest of downtown Winnipeg.

In Shoal Lake, having no physician is worrisome for Merv Starzyk, the mayor of the Rural Municipality of Yellowhead. Their emergency department is now closed, and for the three years he was in the community, Harandi was Starzyk’s doctor, as well.

“Oh, absolutely I’m worried, because there is nobody else on the horizon. We did have a nurse practitioner who was super, and she had a very good clientele here, but she’s on maternity leave.

“Thankfully, we did get another nurse practitioner who came and is filling in, and she has been well accepted. But she is overworked,” Starzyk said.

While Starzyk does not know the reason why Harandi left, he said he has no ill will toward him.

“No, not at all. It’s their own personal choice, they have their life to look after. And it’s not that they’re leaving for a greedy issue, not like, ‘I can make more money over there,’” said Starzyk.

Besides working at both Shoal Lake and Hamiota health centres, Harandi also saw patients at the Yellowhead Community Clinic, said local health committee member Murray Solomon.

“We really regretted seeing him go, but we had no control over that because he was employed by Prairie Mountain Health, and the decision was made between him and them,” Solomon said.

Solomon said he hoped something could have been arranged to have Harandi work off the amount he owes.

“For example, he could work one week a month in Shoal Lake. And at end of that week, do on-call in Hamiota for the weekend, and that could be credited towards his debt, and do that until such time as it was repaid. I think that would be a hell of an arrangement for us,” Solomon said.

The Sun reached out to PMH and asked if it has ever launched a lawsuit against a medical professional in the past, and if there is a standard agreement with all international medical graduates.

Our questions were not answered by press time, but in response to whether the search has started for a new physician for Shoal Lake, the Sun was sent a link to the PMH website with the job posted.

In a similar case in The Pas, a family doctor was sued by The Pas Community Development Corporation (CDC) for $100,000, which she repaid.

Dr. Andrea Wilson had agreed to work for 10 years in the northern Manitoba community, but relocated to Vancouver, B.C., 16 months later.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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