Regina woman still hunting for truth around her mother’s death

It’s been more than five years since Shelly Riffel’s mother died, more than five years since Riffel and her daughter found her mother’s body and more than five years of wondering what exactly happened.

Technically, Riffel does know what killed her mother, Sandra Hendricks; it was a heart attack. But parts of the story are missing and Riffel still seems to have more questions than answers. So she’s turned to the only avenue she has left to get answers: Civil court.

On Oct. 18, 2014, Riffel was getting concerned — she hadn’t heard from her mother since the day before and her calls were going unanswered. She and her younger daughter decided to go over and check on Hendricks.

When a neighbour told Riffel he hadn’t seen her mother since the day before, she says “I just felt a sense of panic.”

They managed to get into the house, and found something no child should have to see.

“That’s where we found her, she was on the floor. Of course I phoned 911,” says Riffel.

The coroner ended up telling Riffel that her mother may have died around 5 o’clock the evening before, and Riffel found out her mother had been to the doctor three hours before then, and she had prescriptions filled shortly before going home.

Riffel requested an autopsy and it came back saying the cause of death had been a heart attack. Riffel claims she was told she would have to pay for the autopsy, but then didn’t have to, that the coroner called to get her mother’s regular doctor to sign off on the death certificate before an autopsy was even performed, and that it was “quite a process” to get all the forms filled out.

Riffel says her mother hadn’t seen her regular doctor the day she died; she saw a Dr. Svitlana Cheshenchuk (also known as Ziarko). According to Riffel, Cheshenchuk told her mother’s regular doctor that she informed Hendricks she was having a heart attack, but Hendricks didn’t listen and just demanded prescriptions and left.

This story confused Riffel, who says she couldn’t see her mother doing that. She also related an incident where Riffel once went to a doctor with heart attack-like symptoms herself and the doctor told her to go to the hospital but wouldn’t let her leave under her own power — saying if she tried to drive herself then he would call the police because she would be a danger.

With that in mind, Riffel wrote to the Ministry of Health, which referred her to the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons. She ended up filing a complaint against the doctor, and Riffel says it ended up being a bit of a process trying to get files sent to the right places and chasing down forms.

It wasn’t until October of 2017 that Riffel found out the doctor was being charged in a professional capacity by the college for altering her patient notes, which is not allowed.

Riffel was confused about the charge until she spoke to a friend.

“I was thinking, ‘What’s so bad about changing notes? Notes need to be changed sometimes,’” says Riffel. “And then one of my friends said to me, ‘But why was she changing her notes?’ … That’s when it hit me that maybe the doctor hadn’t told the truth. It was kind of a shock because I just always was on to this whole idea that the protocols in the system needed to be looked at and I never thought that the doctor was lying.”

The disciplinary panel heard that Cheshenchuk had altered her notes multiple times over about eight months, starting shortly after Hendricks’ death.

Cheshenchuk pleaded guilty to the charge and was given a one-month suspension from practising.

In the evidence there was also an ECG (electrocardiogram) sent by Cheshenchuk’s office to be looked at, marked urgent. An ECG shows how well the heart is functioning and may show evidence of a heart attack. Riffel says she thinks it’s odd that an ECG was sent off marked urgent, but the patient was allowed to leave and drive herself home.

Riffel asked the college about pursuing more answers or more charges, but it declined.

Brian Salte, legal counsel and associate registrar with the college, told 980 CJME that Cheshenchuk had given several explanations for why she changed the notes, none of which was accepted by the college. Salte said finding an explanation for the alteration of the notes wasn’t part of the investigation. He said the suspension and penalty were appropriate for the violation that was proven.

As for any other charges, Salte said the college will only go ahead with what is provable.

“We have to affirmatively prove that something occurred and the only evidence that would exist would be the patient record and the explanation from the physician and any other information that might be relevant to that. But the patient who has died obviously can’t testify as to their side of what occurred,” said Salte.

That answer was frustrating for Riffel, and she has concerns about the whole process. She says it’s disheartening to think that someone could go to the doctor, be told they’re having a heart attack, then go home and die three hours later, and the worst that comes out of it is a month’s suspension.

Riffel says she has mixed feelings about the college these days. The process took a long time but she felt good about it until she found out it wouldn’t do anything more.

Riffel also had some concerns about how things were treated by the coroner’s office, but since then there has been an overhaul. A report was put out in summer 2018 in which several families were consulted, including Riffel, and recommendations and changes were made, in part, based on some of their experiences.

She was hoping something more would come out of the process, like more answers as to what happened to her mother, and consistent procedures or standards for dealing with a person in that situation.

There aren’t really any other avenues for Riffel in her quest. There’s no other body which can review a college decision in Saskatchewan or investigate or take professional action against a doctor.

Salte said there’s some limited ability to review a decision in B.C. and Ontario, but not in any other provinces.

So Riffel turned to the only other things she could think of — the courts.

“I think a court of law is pretty relevant if it gets to that point. I just have to take that step and see from there what comes out of that. I can’t think of any other way to address the situation, other than legally right now,” she says.

Riffel filed suit against the doctor in July 2018. She could get money out of it, but Riffel says her ultimate aim is getting the doctor under oath and finding out exactly what happened the day her mother died.

There have been delays since, but Riffel hopes things get moving soon. She says the delay is very tiring and she sometimes she feels like giving up, but she doesn’t think she can.

“I just feel like I need to do that for my mother,” she says.