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Patient threatened to blow up Burnaby hospital, nurse testifies

B.C. Human Rights Tribunal dismisses Islamophobia complaint against health providers
burnaby hospital
Burnaby Hospital.

B.C.’s Human Rights Tribunal has dismissed a complaint of discrimination due to race or religion against health authorities, a nurse and a paramedic from a man who threatened to blow up Burnaby General Hospital when he wasn’t treated quickly enough.

Emotions Paradise Universe, who legally changed his name from Osama al-Salami, arrived at the hospital in July 2017 with back pain. He was triaged and put in a waiting room.

When he asked a nurse for a place to lie down and was told there was none, Universe became agitated.

“Mr. Universe threatened that he was going to blow the place up. He also threatened to chop us into pieces,” the nurse testified.

Witnesses said Universe became further agitated and louder, at which point a paramedic arrived and, according to Universe, punched Universe’s left shoulder and asked for police to be called.

The paramedic testified her placed his hand on Universe’s shoulder after which the man began saying “things like I hate Canadians, I hate all of you, we should kill you all, Muslims will get you, and all these weird sort of religious innuendoes, kind of Jihadist type language.”

Universe, a Muslim originally from Iraq, has also alleged the paramedic has a twin brother in the RCMP who has caused the police to harass him.

Shortly after police removed Universe from the hospital, Universe tried to hang himself and was involuntarily committed under The Mental Health Act.

Tribunal member Walter Rilkoff ruled January 15 that Universe had no reasonable prospect of establishing he had been discriminated against.

“There is simply no evidence from which the Tribunal could reasonably infer that the delay in treating Mr. Universe was caused in whole or in part because of bias against Muslims or Arabs,” Rilkoff said.

The decision noted Universe had changed his name “in an attempt to live in peace.”