Medical licence renewed for Labrador doctor under investigation following complaints from at least 20 patients

Newfoundland and Labrador’s new health minister is vowing to address what she calls a “crisis of trust” among reproductive health patients in Labrador amid an ongoing investigation by the province’s College of Physicians and Surgeons into complaints against Happy Valley-Goose Bay’s only obstetrician/gynecologist.

“I want to make it clear to residents in Labrador that […] it’s my responsibility to ensure that patients can feel respected, that they have access to safe and respectful reproductive healthcare,” Lela Evans, the Inuk MHA for Torgat Mountains, told The Independent in a phone interview Thursday.

The minister’s comments come after the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador (CPSNL) renewed the medical license of an obstetrician/gynecologist in Happy Valley-Goose Bay under investigation following complaints from at least 20 patients.

Last January, The Independent reported multiple patients in Labrador, including Indigenous women, were speaking out about negative experiences with Dr. Adolf Hamann, who was previously banned by a provincial health authority from practising at a Corner Brook hospital after he was charged with uttering threats to a colleague.

Medical license renewed

According to the CPSNL website, Hamann’s medical license has been renewed without any restrictions for the period of Jan. 16, 2025 to Jan. 14, 2027. 

In an emailed statement, CPSNL Communications Officer Nikki Street said physicians under investigation can renew their license, and that “professional conduct issues are taken into consideration during the licensing renewal process.” Street said the college uses the terms ‘professional conduct issues’ and ‘complaints’ “interchangeably” in reference to “allegations filed against a physician pursuant to s. 42 of the Medical Act, 2011.”

Once ongoing investigations are complete, “a licence may be subject to regulatory action, including suspension,” by the college’s Complaints Authorization Committee.

After The Independent published allegations against Hamann from three women, the doctor took time off work and traveled out of the country, according to Hamann’s lawyer, Robin Cook, who also said at the time that NL Health Services was reviewing complaints from two patients.

Cook said Hamann denied any wrongdoing in those cases, and that he had “explained his version of what occurred.” He also said Hamann had been asked “to continue [working] because of the shortage of physicians” in the region.

Women began sharing their allegations after the daughter of an Indigenous woman went public on social media about her mother’s experience with Dr. Hamann, who she said was supposed to remove a cyst from her mother’s ovaries but botched the surgery.

After the procedure, Sheila Blake’s daughter Jodie Ashini told The Independent, Blake was “screaming and crying in pain” after her “bowel was perforated” during the operation. Blake was airlifted to St. John’s, where she was admitted to intensive care and spent the next several months in hospital. 

In a separate interview with The Independent, a nurse in Happy Valley-Goose Bay alleged Dr. Hamann removed her fallopian tubes without her knowledge or consent — something she only learned years later after deciding she wanted to try to have another child. When Karyn Couperthwaite went to have her tubes untied—a procedure known as reverse tubal ligation—she said another doctor informed her that her fallopian tubes had been removed altogether.

Blake and Couperthwaite are among the 20 or more women who have filed complaints with either NL Health Services or the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador, or both.

Doctor’s return surprised complainants

In September The Independent reported that some of Hamann’s former patients, including Couperthwaite, who works in the same hospital as Hamann, were caught off guard by Hamann’s unexpected return to work. Couperthwaite, Blake and Strachan said they had not received any indication from the health authority or the CPSNL that Hamann was returning to work.

At the time an opposition MHA, Evans said the lack of communication from authorities around Hamann’s return and the investigations into the complaints against him “erodes confidence” in the province’s healthcare system. “Patients are worried now and family members of patients are worried: ‘Well, is that going to happen to my loved one? Is that gonna happen to me?’” she said.

“ I am really concerned that what’s not going to be measured is the people who don’t go to their appointments, or don’t have follow-up care because they have fear or distrust of this doctor,” Evans explained.

Two weeks later an Inuk woman living in Happy Valley-Goose Bay spoke out after she felt it was in her best interest to cancel an appointment with Dr. Hamann and try to seek out care elsewhere.

Tracy Martin said she was referred to a gynecologist and was under the impression she would be seeing a visiting woman physician. But when she sat in the waiting room before her appointment, she said she heard other women talking about Hamann’s return to work. “Concerned, I asked the receptionist if he was the doctor I was scheduled to see, and she confirmed he was,” Martin said. “At that point, I told her I would be refusing the appointment and she directed me to the booking office.”

That same month, during a visit to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, then Premier John Hogan said questions about the situation—and what he called “HR issues”—should be directed to the CPSNL.

Regardless of the College of Physicians and Surgeons’ decision to allow Hamann to continue practising while under investigation, Blake says the doctor’s willingness to return to work under the circumstances bespeaks a lack of concern on his part. “It certainly shows his character to come back here and very possibly run into one of his victims. I’m not sure how I would react if I ran into him at the hospital or around town,” she says. “The thought sickens me.”

The Independent reached out to Hamann through his lawyer but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

‘Failure of Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services’: Evans

Almost 11 months since The Independent first reported on the alleged incidents involving Hamann, Evans said she wants to restore trust in local reproductive healthcare. “I want patients out there to know that I am going to get to the bottom of this.”

“ I have to stand by the fact [that] as minister I can’t speak to specific individual cases, but what I can do is I can follow up,” she said. “As minister of health I can actually direct Newfoundland Labrador Health Services to investigate complaints. Are there complaints out there, and where are these complaints? Are they with the College of Physicians? Are there patients who feel like they’ve been not properly cared for, or even harmed?

“If patients have issues around trust, accessing healthcare—whether it’s a single physician that they have an issue with, or if it’s the organization that’s delivering the healthcare—I want to know what it is, and I want to know how we’re going to deal with that because it has to be dealt with. And as minister of health, I can insist on that.”

Evans, who also serves as the PC government’s Minister of Labrador Affairs and Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, said the provincial health authority also “did not properly engage with patients and also the Indigenous organizations like Nunatsiavut and the Innu Nation who looks after Indigenous health,” including “in terms of investigation and follow-up and communication.

“So there was a lack of transparency there that contributed to the mistrust,” she continued. “So for me, I need to get to the bottom of this now, and I think it has to be something that’s done quickly.

“People have to be held to account. Why was this allowed to go on for so long?” Evans said, adding “there’s been a failure of Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services to do that.”

The health authority did not respond to The Independent’s request for comment.

Last week Nunatsiavut Government First Minister and Acting Health and Social Development Minister Melva Williams said the Inuit government “acknowledges the courage it takes for patients and families to come forward with their experiences, and is encouraging anyone with concerns about their care to use the formal complaint process so that issues can be properly investigated and addressed.”

In a statement, Williams said Evans had “provided assurances that she is committed to addressing the issues raised by patients, and emphasized her commitment to putting measures in place to ensure that all patients are provided appropriate reproductive health services in a safe and caring environment, allowing for optimal health outcomes.”

Blake says NL Health Services “needs to be held accountable seeing how they brought him back, knowing full well that he is under investigation.”