Manitoba medical examiner Thambirajah Balachandra, pictured at a news conference in February 2003, told the Winnipeg Free Press on Friday that security guards at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg tried in vain to get help for Brian Sinclair as he sat vomiting — and dying — in the ER last September. (Phil Hossack/Canadian Press/Winnipeg Free Press)

Manitoba's chief medical examiner says security guards at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg tried in vain to get help for a homeless man as he sat vomiting — and dying — in the emergency department last September, the Winnipeg Free Press reported.

After viewing security tapes and interviewing hospital security staff, Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra told the newspaper Friday that security guards tried "many times" to get the attention of triage staff last Sept. 21 when Brian Sinclair was vomiting and in urgent need of care.

"The security guards tried to talk to the hospital staff," Balachandra told the Free Press. "But to no avail."

Balachandra said videotape he viewed last week also showed Sinclair, 45, speaking to uniformed hospital staff at the triage desk.

The latest details contradict previous comments from health officials that they did not know Sinclair needed medical care. Last Sept. 23, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said Sinclair appears never to have been assessed by a triage nurse and was not registered as a patient seeking care, so reassessment nurses didn't know he was there for help.

He was apparently dead for some time before staff members were alerted, officials have said.

An autopsy later determined Sinclair died as a result of a bladder infection from a blocked catheter, which was treatable.

Sinclair, a double amputee with a speech problem, was found dead in his wheelchair on Sept. 21 after waiting 34 hours in the emergency department of the Health Sciences Centre.

Last week, Balachandra called an inquest into Sinclair's death, but a date has not been set.