A Grande Prairie surgeon's taping of a noose to the door of an operating room in 2016 was an inappropriate but not racist incident in a hospital plagued by a toxic work culture, a government-ordered external report has concluded. "The culture was described variously as fearful, unsafe, threatening, chaotic, and disrespectful," Windowpane president Donna Neumann wrote in the report. But Neumann found "virtually no evidence" that Dr. Wynand Wessels, the white surgeon who tied the noose in June 2016, is racist. She said the only people "who thought Dr. Wessels was racist were those who judged him solely based on the incomplete information in the media or as was passed by word of mouth." Wessels taped the noose to the door of an operating room in June 2016.

Source: CBC News May 21, 2021 22:41 UTC