Lawsuit against family doctor alleges substandard care

The estate of a Brandon man who died from esophageal cancer in 2025 is suing his former family doctor, alleging her lack of assessment led to a poorer prognosis and contributed to his death.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of Robert Janzen in Manitoba Court of King’s Bench on March 16 says Dr. Tharina Uys — a family physician in Brandon — failed to assess, care and treat the plaintiff “with the standard expected of a family practitioner practicing in Manitoba.”

None of the allegations has been proven in court and no statement of defence has been filed.

Janzen died on Jan. 4, 2025 at 80 years old. He had been a patient of Uys since August 2003, according to the statement of claim.

The lawsuit said Janzen had diabetes and had suffered from gastroesophageal reflux for several years, which his doctor treated with various over-the-counter and prescription medications.

His symptoms worsened around November or December 2023 when he was “regurgitating after everything he ate, even fluids, and also began vomiting,” the lawsuit said.

“The plaintiff consequently began to suffer weight loss due to his then inability to keep foods down other than pureed and liquid foods.”

The lawsuit claims this affected his ability to regulate his blood sugar with insulin injections, causing additional health challenges.

Uys referred Janzen to a specialist to investigate the reflux disease “for the first time” in February 2024. After a consultation, the specialist recommended Janzen receive a diagnostic gastroscopy and colonoscopy.

“No further testing was undertaken or recommended at the time by the defendant,” the lawsuit alleges.

During that same month, Uys referred Janzen to a doctor specializing in nephrology and internal medicine, who recommended an endoscopy be expedited and that Janzen was to go to the emergency room if his symptoms worsened.

The plaintiff went to the ER at the Brandon Regional Health Centre on Feb. 27, 2024 and a physician recommended that the upper endoscopy — which had been planned for April — be rescheduled and expedited, the lawsuit said.

The doctor also said an X-ray should be considered.

Janzen had a colonoscopy and gastroscopy on March 3, 2024 and a circumferential lesion in the distal esophagus was identified. A biopsy found a mass at the distal esophagus that was suspicious for cancer, the lawsuit alleges.

He had a second gastroscopy on March 21, 2024 and a cytology report detected malignancy and the pathology report then indicated a high-grade dysplasia of the columnar mucosa.

He had a third gastroscopy the next day to receive esophageal stenting to help relieve his symptoms and improve his eating ability, the lawsuit said. A CT scan suggested a locally advanced mass was present, leading toward the aorta.

Janzen was referred to CancerCare Manitoba in March 2024, but he was advised he could not be accepted for treatment because “there was no pathology report at the time confirming the cancer diagnosis,” the lawsuit claims.

On March 26, 2024, one of his specialists recommended that he receive emergency treatment and care from the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. “given the concerns and lack of available treatment in Manitoba,” according to the lawsuit.

He had another gastroscopy that replaced his stent and had additional biopsies taken when he went to the Mayo Clinic. The surgical pathology report dated April 5, 2024 from the Mayo Clinic provided a conclusive diagnosis of esophageal invasive well-differentiated adenocarcinoma, the lawsuit says.

The plaintiff received chemotherapy treatment with proton beam radiation at the Mayo Clinic for stage four esophageal cancer.

Before he died, Janzen experienced stress, anxiety, depression, a loss of the amenities of life and the decline in his physical health, resulting in pain and suffering, the lawsuit alleges.

The statement of claim said Uys failed to properly monitor and assess the plaintiff’s health in an ongoing and timely manner and take steps to deal with his symptoms for an “extended period of time when it would or should have been apparent that his health was declining.”

The lawsuit alleges the doctor failed to refer Janzen to a specialist in a timely way if she was unable to appropriately assess, diagnose or treat him, and exercise the proper degree of skill, knowledge and care of a physician providing medical treatment.

“Such breaches resulted in the progression of cancer to advanced stages resulting in a poorer prognosis, ineffectiveness of treatment, and caused or materially contributed (to) his ultimate death,” the lawsuit claims.

The plaintiff is claiming general and special damages, including medical expenses incurred at the Mayo Clinic for an amount to be determined in court.

The Brandon Sun reached out to the defendant for comment on Wednesday but didn’t receive a response before press time.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com