Sixty-year-old Mary Johnny, shown in this undated photo, died of a bowel obstruction after being treated at the Watson Lake Hospital in 2012. (CBC)
In Watson Lake they just call him Dr Said.
Said Secerbegovic has been the Yukon town’s doctor for almost 35 years — most of that time the only doctor in town.
But at a coroner’s inquest looking into the death of one of his patients, he said he’s been overworked on a job that’s unhealthy and not safe.
Two years ago, Mary Johnny died at age 60, one day after being medevaced to Whitehorse.
Testifying yesterday, Secerbegovich said when he’s working he’s on call 24/7, and he actually puts in 16 to 18 hours a day.
The doctor has been semi-retired the past seven years, living in Winnipeg, but says he comes back to Watson Lake for months at a time to relieve his daughter, who’s taken over the practice.
At the time of Mary Johnny’s death, he’d been working two weeks without a break, on three hours sleep a night.
He’d known Johnny most of her life and she had recently become family when Johnny’s son married his daughter, Tanis.
Asked if, looking back now, he would have treated her any differently, the doctor mused aloud about his decision to delay her medevac.
“Her condition was not survivable” Secerbegovich said, and “because of our relationship I was grasping at a straw.”
The coroner’s inquest is taking place with a jury of six. It continues today.
