Toronto Canada April 16 2010
A security guard at St. Michael’s hospital is serving five months in jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting a patient, CBC News has learned.
The incident happened in a bathroom on the third floor of the hospital in July 2008.
Court transcripts detail how the 43-year-old woman was taken to an isolated part of the hospital by security guard Ronnie Donaldson and assaulted, after he had finished his shift.
Donaldson, 49, was convicted two weeks ago.
According to the transcripts the two met while the woman, who had been committed to the hospital’s psychiatric ward for treatment, was outside the hospital smoking.
Donaldson, who had worked at the hospital for 20 years, offered to show the woman the hospital’s rooftop helipad, where helicopters take off and land.
Later, he gave her a tour of an isolated part of the hospital. By that time he had changed out of his security guard uniform.
Donaldson testified he believed she wanted to have sex and they fondled each other in a bathroom in a closed off wing on the hospital’s third floor.
Afterwards the woman, who was suicidal, reported what happened to police.
At Donaldson’s trial, she told the court “I feel like I was taken advantage of when I wasn’t in a very clear state of mind.”
The hospital has refused to comment on the case.
