The former provincial health minister once showed Dr. Alie Marrero as the person who was to come down with what was previously described by public health officials as a “neurological syndrome cluster of unknown cause.” Marrero identified 46 of the 48 patients the government included in the cluster. But as of Aug. 1, he will no longer work at the Moncton Multidisciplinary Neurodegenerative Disease Clinic, known as the MIND Clinic, at the Moncton Hospital, Horizon Health confirmed. In a statement, Dr. Susan Brien, Horizon’s vice president of medical, academic and research affairs, said patients can choose to see Marrero at Vitalité’s University Hospital Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont in Moncton or be assigned a new neurologist at the MIND clinic and get a new evaluation. “Continued monitoring at the MIND clinic will also include support from the interdisciplinary team consisting of two geriatricians, two neurologists, two registered nurses, a neuropsychologist, a social worker, a researcher and colleagues in psychiatry, speech pathology, physiotherapy and the job. treatment,” Brien wrote. Dr. Susan Brien, Horizon’s vice-president of medical, academic and research affairs, says patients can continue to see Marrero at a different hospital in Moncton or be assigned a new neurologist at the MIND clinic. (CBC) Brien’s statement did not say why Marrero will no longer be at the clinic. When asked, Brien said Marrero works for Vitalité and Dumont Hospital is his primary practice. He said he will continue to have privileges at the Moncton hospital. “We offer him our appreciation for his cooperation,” Brien wrote. “If you want to discuss the details of his practice, it would be best to contact him directly.” Marrero did not give an interview.
The province says there is no unknown disease
A panel composed primarily of neurologists from New Brunswick reviewed records from the 48 patients in the complex. The panel, which did not include Marrero, found that while some patients have unusual symptoms, they do not have a common, unknown disease. “The oversight committee unanimously agreed that these 48 people should never have been recognized as having a neurological syndrome of unknown cause and that based on the evidence reviewed, no such syndrome exists,” said the health’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jennifer Russell, in a statement. February. . “Public Health agrees with these findings, but I stress again, this does not mean that these people are not seriously ill. It means that they are ill with a known neurological condition.” Many of these patients continue to receive treatment at the MIND clinic, which opened in April 2021 to assess and treat “patients suffering from rapid or early cognitive decline.” “Some of these patients have serious known medical conditions that affect their lives in a profound way, and several patients require follow-up, evaluation and care,” the clinic’s website states.
Some patients will follow Marrero to Dumont
But now, some patients will have to leave the MIND clinic to continue seeing Marrero. They include Derek Cuthbertson, who was said to be part of the cluster of 48, and his stepdaughter, Jillian Lucas. For more than four years, Cuthbertson has struggled with symptoms ranging from dizziness and memory problems to problems speaking and forming words. “A lot of times, I’ll try to speak and I know the word I want to use, but it won’t come out,” Cuthbertson said. Lucas, who lives in the same Riverside-Albert home as her stepfather, began seeing Marrero after he felt she had symptoms similar to Cuthbertson’s, including memory and balance problems. Lucas had a concussion several years ago, but said Marrero doesn’t think that explains all of her symptoms and test results. Both plan to continue seeing Marrero at Dumont, but that means losing access to the other specialists at the MIND clinic. “I have full trust and faith in him and I follow him,” Lucas said. Steve Ellis also plans to move his 64-year-old father’s care to Dumont to follow Marrero. She fears it will take longer to get an appointment now that Marrero will no longer be at the MIND clinic, and she believes time is of the essence for his father, Roger. “They’re taking away what little dignity we have left by trying to make Dr. Marrero look bad and trying to make us look like there’s nothing wrong with us,” Ellis said. He wishes families would be given the option to continue seeing Marrero and access services at the MIND clinic, but Ellis doesn’t want any other neurologist to treat his father, who is also among the 48. Steve Ellis, pictured here with his father, Roger Ellis, says he doesn’t trust any other neurologist in New Brunswick to care for his father. (Submitted by Steve Ellis) “They should at least tell us why they’re removing him,” Ellis said. “Obviously, it would be better if they just reversed their decision, which is our goal: to put him back in the MIND clinic. But if they’re not going to do that, you need to tell us why he was removed, period.”
Marrero recused himself from the investigation
The change at the MIND clinic comes a year after the province removed Marrero from its investigation into the cluster. In April 2021, around the same time the MIND Clinic opened, former Health Secretary Dorothy Shephard said Marrero was leading a steering committee investigating the disease. Even after the oversight committee was created in May, and Marrero was not part of the committee, Shephard suggested Marrero would still play a key role. “We have put together an oversight committee to assist Dr. Marrero in this process and to ensure that we cover all our bases and all the information that [patients] we’re giving, we want to make sure we put expert eyes on it to make it the best,” Shephard said on May 27. But last June, after months of regular meetings with Public Health officials, Marrero was disqualified. “All of a sudden, in June, we decided that it’s New Brunswick, with the committee that was created, that would take over everything and we stayed out of it,” Marrero told Radio-Canada’s Enquête last year. In October, government officials went a step further to distance themselves from Marrero, saying the investigation needed to be “bigger than a single neurologist.” “Dr. Marrero was not the head of this investigation,” Shephard said at a news conference. Dr. Alier Marrero consulted with Public Health on a cluster of neurological illnesses for months before he was disqualified from the investigation in spring 2021, records show. (Virginia Smart/CBC) “Public Health was the lead in this investigation. And I think you can appreciate that when an investigation is conducted into a potential neurological syndrome group, it should be done from an unbiased perspective.” In the fall, Marrero told the Enquête that he continues to believe there is an unknown disease. “I think there’s an unknown disease that I’m seeing more and more cases of and more and more young people that need to be diagnosed and that deserves a thorough investigation by teams, experts in the field, nationally and internationally.” he told Radio-Canada. “I am convinced that it is gaining momentum, because I see it clinically.”
