SickKids staff member faces criminal charges
Summary:
The safety of our patients and families remains our highest priority. There is currently no evidence linking the charges to the staff member's role at SickKids.
The Toronto Police Service (TPS) has charged Alvin Dela Cruz with child sexual abuse and exploitation-related offences. Dela Cruz, a member of the housekeeping team, was placed on leave immediately after The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) became aware of the criminal charges and has since resigned from his role.
We acknowledge this news is deeply disturbing, particularly given the recent criminal charges involving a SickKids physician. To our knowledge, the two employees did not know or work with one another. TPS has indicated that there is no evidence linking the alleged criminal charges to the employees’ work at SickKids.
"The conduct described in the charges is completely unacceptable and runs contrary to our core values. It represents a profound breach of the trust that patients, families, staff and the public place in the people who work at SickKids," says Dr. Ronald Cohn, President and CEO, SickKids. "The safety and well-being of our patients, families, and staff is our highest priority, and we are committed to maintaining the trust that our community places in us."
SickKids has a range of measures in place to help promote a safe environment, including pre-employment screening processes, policies and standards of conduct, and workplace safeguards and technology controls designed to detect and prevent inappropriate or illegal activity within our systems.
We recognize that even the strongest safeguards cannot prevent every instance of alleged criminal conduct. That is why we continuously maintain rigorous controls and strengthen them whenever possible. In response to these recent events, we have engaged external experts to review our current processes, controls and safeguards preventing child harm. We also plan to explore opportunities to strengthen our knowledge of child sexual abuse and exploitation through active engagement in programming provided by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
Anyone with concerns or information relevant to the investigation should contact TPS. Patients and families who have questions about their care at SickKids can reach out to Patient & Family Relations by emailing patient.relations@sickkids.ca. We do not have any additional information to share and questions about the investigation and charges should be directed to Toronto Police Service.