The woman who passed herself off as a nurse at BC Women’s Hospital will spend a total of seven years in prison after being sentenced in B.C. Supreme Court Dec. 20 for crimes affecting 900 or more people.
Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes said Brigitte Cleroux, 52, “profoundly violated” the victims who had placed themselves in the care of the medical system, at times when they were unconscious or extremely vulnerable.
Cleroux pleaded guilty to multiple charges of assault, fraud, impersonating a nurse and forgery in connection with cases at the hospital, a dentist’s office in Surrey, and View Royal Surgical Centre in Victoria. She had used the identity and credentials of a real nurse and created fake resumés, the court heard.
Cleroux was on parole at the time of the Surrey offences.
The judge said Cleroux’s actions of chronic dishonesty damaged public trust in the medical system. That was a repeated message in victim impact statements presented to the court.
“Ms. Cleroux used a weapon each time she inserted a needle,” Holmes said, later adding Cleroux’s giving people drugs such as fentanyl and hydromorphone was potentially dangerous and, done improperly, “could cause serious health consequences.”
Holmes said many of the people who came into contact with Cleroux have moved on from their doctors or specialists due to trust issues. Some have become distanced from friends and family and had to leave their jobs.
Others have suffered from their medical records having to be scrutinized by strangers as part of the investigation, Holmes said.
The court heard some are under care for mental issues and one individual has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Some have lost trust in almost everyone in their lives,” Holmes said.
Several of those victims told the court their faith in the health system had been shattered.
The nurse whose credentials and identity Cleroux used has changed her name. Her identity is protected by a publication ban.
“M.S. had to abandon a profession identity she built in her own name because Ms. Cleroux stole and contaminated that name,” Holmes said.
The new sentence extends by four years one Cleroux is currently serving in Ontario as some of the sentences were applied consecutively to that earlier sentencing.
Cleroux earlier apologized to her victims. She acknowledged she had caused damage to the B.C. medical system, saying people deserved to be treated by medical professionals.
She pleaded guilty July 19 because she was “remorseful and ashamed” by what she had done, she said, noting she had been involved in patients’ care when she shouldn’t have been.
Holmes had to engage in an intricate balancing of sentencing principles given the differing natures of the charges. The assault charges were treated as sentences consecutive to others given their impacts and gravity. Others were to run concurrently to other sentences, the judge said.
She also had to recognize the fact that Cleroux has a lengthy criminal record for crimes of dishonesty and fraud, totalling 67 convictions.
In one past case, Holmes said, Cleroux duped a person aged 102 out of $23,000.
One doctor had reported Cleroux lacked self-awareness and had a profound lack of insight into her behaviour and how it affected others.
What happened?
The court heard earlier that Cleroux had impersonated the specific nurse and used her credentials to get work at BC Women’s Hospital from June 2020 to June 2021. She also used that information to sign documents for Blue Cross and pension coverage.
Payments were going into her own bank account, as she had crossed out her name and written in the other person’s name on personal cheques to set up direct deposit.
The assault allegations came as a result of using needles to inject patients without consent.
In the case of View Royal Surgical Centre, the allegation was fraud exceeding $5,000 for using the real nurse’s identification to get work. Her work involved narcotics medication, managing pain and discharge issues.
The court heard Cleroux was a team leader in a post-anaesthetic care unit at BC Women’s Hospital dealing with such things as blood transfusions and heart monitoring.
However, complaints soon began to start trickling in, some about a lack of professionalism, others about poor nursing skills or conduct.
Lawyer’s sentence positions
The Crown had asked for eight years, which, added to the seven-year sentence she is serving in Ontario for similar crimes, would total 15 years.
Defence lawyer Guillaume Garih, however, suggested five to six years concurrent to the Ontario five-year sentence, which has about three years remaining.
Garih said the crimes across Canada were part of a spree, and that the sentence handed down by Holmes should reflect that.
