EXCLUSIVE: Nurse claims Doodnaught assaulted her more than 20 years ago

The woman in this story doesn’t want her identity revealed so she will be referred to as “Jane.”

Jane started nursing at North York General Hospital in 1990, and like many of her colleagues, she respected anesthesiologist Dr. George Doodnaught; so much so that when she later required a minor gynecological surgery, she requested him in the operating room.

“I thought he was an excellent doctor…I thought he was one of the best,” she said.

It was July 1992.

She awoke from the surgery groggy from the drugs Doodnaught administered.

“I don’t remember anything until I started to wake up,” she said.

But as the fog cleared, disturbing memories also came into focus. She claims Doodnaught fondled her, and forced her to perform oral sex.

She didn’t tell anyone about the alleged incident at the time, fearing her story would be discredited.

“I felt that nobody would believe me,” she said. “He was such a wonderful guy that he could never had done anything so heinous. And that they would turn it around and make it look like it was my fault.

“I was confused,” she added. “I didn’t know why it had happened. I guess for a long time I questioned if it had really happened or if I had imagined it.”

Her confusion led to anger and disbelief when nearly two decades later, Doodnaught’s name appeared in the news, accused of a vile string of assaults on semi-conscious patients.

“It was like an explosion went off in my head. I just gasped.”

She came forward, giving a police statement and testifying at Doodnaught’s preliminary hearing.

But despite Doodnaught’s recent conviction and 10-year sentence for sexually abusing 21 patients between 2006 and 2010, Jane’s allegations have never been proven in court.

As she told the Inside Story’s Avery Haines, she remains an ‘alleged victim’ because the Crown attorney selected just 21 of 29 women who came forward with allegations.

“I received a phone call from my case worker at Victims Support, saying that the Crown attorney had been told by the government to cut back on the numbers of cases, that it was going to take too long and cost too much money and that I had been one of the witnesses that had been chosen not to be part of the trial.”

In a statement, the Attorney General’s office said: “The Crown has an ongoing obligation to assess the strength of a case throughout a prosecution…”

“The decision to terminate a prosecution in relation to a particular victim can be one of the most difficult for the Crown to make.”

Jane says her fears that hospital staff wouldn’t have believed her were validated by the fact that staff ignored three separate complaints between 2006 and 2008, before a fourth victim came forward in 2010, triggering an investigation.

“The bulk of my anger doesn’t lie with (Doodnaught),” Jane said. “It’s the fact that he was behaving like this and the hospital refused to believe it. That’s what really makes me angry.”

North York General’s president and CEO Tim Rutledge said the hospital has reviewed and strengthened how they address patient complaints in light of Doodnaught’s vile crimes.

“Words cannot begin to describe how sorry I am for the profound impact that these crimes have had on the lives of these patients,” he said after Doodnaught was found guilty. “We have repeatedly asked ourselves how this could have happened.

“That he did this in an operating room, a place of ultimate trust is difficult to understand and frankly shocking…This should not have happened and on behalf of the hospital I sincerely apologize.”