Paramedic suspended for relationship with patient

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WINNIPEG — A veteran paramedic, who is a former health-care union executive, has been suspended for 18 months after pleading guilty to having a sexual relationship with a patient.

A panel of the College of Paramedics of Manitoba advised Kirk Seniuk, a 20-year paramedic, he can’t reapply for a practice and registration certificate during his suspension and must complete an ethics and boundaries course as well as a paramedic refresher course. He was ordered to pay $10,000 in costs.

“Paramedics are in a position of trust and are expected to maintain the highest standards of integrity and professionalism,” said deputy registrar Christine Ewacha on Friday.

“This is believed to be an isolated matter … the College of Paramedics of Manitoba understands that this situation and process has been very difficult for all involved … we protect the public by taking all allegations seriously.”

The hearing was held on Dec. 3, and the order was issued on Dec. 12. The decision said Seniuk has not worked as a paramedic for more than a year.

Neither Seniuk nor his lawyer, Amber Harms, could be reached for comment.

A joint statement of facts presented to the committee said the relationship lasted from February 2022 to March 2023 when Seniuk worked as a primary care paramedic in southern Manitoba. At the time, Seniuk was on the executive council of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals as its District 5/southern director. District 5 includes emergency medical services and hospitals in southern Manitoba, including Steinbach, Portage la Prairie, Gladstone and Swan Lake.

“All health care professionals are required to uphold professional standards,” said association president Jason Linklater.

“It is a regulatory college’s responsibility to investigate allegations of professional misconduct and report on findings, as it is an association’s duty to represent all its members.

The union confirmed Seniuk is no longer a member of the union.

As per the committee’s decision, Seniuk “is guilty of professional misconduct, has displayed a lack of knowledge or a lack of skill and/or judgment in the practice of paramedicine, and is guilty of conduct unbecoming a member.”

The committee said there was a “lengthy and detailed list of discrete incidences of misconduct” on Seniuk’s part.

“(He) embarked on a personal relationship of a sexual nature with a patient with whom he had an ongoing therapeutic relationship and who, to his first-hand knowledge, was in a particularly vulnerable state and had a history of mental health issues, including a history of substance abuse.”

The first the college knew about any type of an inappropriate relationship was in late 2022 when the patient, whose identity and community is subject to a publication ban, and who has since died, sent in two messages to the college online complaint portal.

The college tried to contact the woman, and sent a letter to her on Jan. 3, 2023, to find out more about the allegations, but she died two months later without getting back to them.

A few months later, the college sent Seniuk a letter to tell him about the allegations and had a college investigator interview him twice. Seniuk was given a chance to respond to the investigator’s report.

The committee heard the woman had a history of substance abuse and had called more than 40 times for emergency services between 2017 and 2023.

Seven of those calls were answered by Seniuk and the woman first contacted him via Facebook in early 2022.

During the next 13 months the pair exchanged messages about twice a week and “over time, the messages became sexual and explicit (and) there was a mutual exchange of nude photographs.”

Seniuk responded as a paramedic four times after the woman first contacted him.

Seniuk, who admitted he met with the woman four times when he was off duty, denied they’d had intercourse, but admitted “there were two instances of intimate touching, and one in which a sexual fantasy of (the woman) was acted out.”

The committee was told the incident was the first time Seniuk had faced a disciplinary matter or been the subject of a complaint.

» Winnipeg Free Press