CBC
Woman inappropriately locked up at P.E.I. hospital, father alleges at doctor’s misconduct hearing
By Carolyn Ryan
March 23, 2022

— Excerpt

A disciplinary hearing for a P.E.I. psychiatrist accused of professional misconduct heard Wednesday that he would order staff to lock up a patient with Huntington’s disease for hours at a time.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of P.E.I. is considering allegations made against Dr. Arvind Singh at a series of hearings that began Wednesday in Charlottetown.

The woman at the centre of the case is 40-year-old Laurel Hurst, who was under Singh’s care at Prince County Hospital in Summerside, P.E.I. The substance of the complaint is that Singh’s treatment was inappropriate given the nature of her condition.

Hurst was 26 when she was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, a hereditary and degenerative disease that causes a breakdown of the nerve cells in the brain. Her mother died of it at age 53; her older sister also developed it.

Stephen Hurst says his daughter Laurel once lived and worked as a hairdresser in London, England.

Now, he says his daughter’s Huntington’s presents like that of a patient with three diseases: Parkinson’s, which causes shaking; Alzheimer’s, which causes dementia; and schizophrenia, which causes behavioural issues.

As a result, her father says she has the mental abilities of a four-year-old and an inability to control her self-destructive actions. Before her hospitalization, she also struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and antisocial behaviour including theft, gross indecency and aggression toward others…