A Grande Prairie-based surgeon will be suspended for four months after taping a noose to an operating room door in the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in 2016. The decision came down following a tribunal by the College Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta.
According to documents released on Monday, Dr. Wynand Wessels was also ordered to pay 75 per cent of the costs of the investigation into the event, as well as a pair of hearings.
Dr. Wynand Wessels, who is a white man from South Africa, admitted to tying a rope in the shape of a noose and taping it to the door of an operating room where it could be seen by his black colleagues but maintained it wasn’t meant to be a racist symbol.
A tribunal in 2020 found it offended some of Wessels’ colleagues and was perceived by some as violent and racist. The conduct, as stated in the tribunal report, was called not only was it unprofessional but it’s believed to constitute ‘intimidating, threatening conduct, even if there was insufficient evidence of racial motivation’.
The start date of Wessels suspension will commence on a date to be determined, however, two weeks taken off of the suspension, as Wessel was ordered to stay home for that time period in July 2020.