Une fois qu'un témoin a attesté l'authenticité d'un dossier hospitalier et que celui-ci a été admis comme preuve lors de l'examen préalable sans objection, le juge devrait admettre les parties pertinentes du dossier comme preuve prima facie des faits qui y sont consignés

R. v. Nield, 2019 BCCA 27 

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[77]        The Crown says the trial judge properly refused to admit the entire hospital record into evidence. This record consisted of 148 pages and the Crown says providing it to the jury would have been “highly unhelpful and confusing”. In my view, the judge did not adequately examine whether portions of the hospital record could properly be admitted as business records. There is no doubt that, but for concerns with respect to the relevance of certain entries, the hospital record was an admissible document. Rita Johnson, a nurse who was a witness at the voir dire, identified the complete hospital record and this record was admitted into evidence on the voir dire, as Exhibit 3, without objection.

[78]        The Crown’s objection to admitting the hospital record into evidence was that it was voluminous and contained material that might be difficult for the jury to understand and appropriately weigh. That objection was to the “wholesale” admission of the hospital record. The trial judge, however, rejected defence counsel’s request to have even part of the hospital record, the nursing notes, admitted into evidence. That ruling appeared to be founded upon the view that the hospital record spoke only to the complaint that the appellant had not received appropriate medical care, whereas the appellant’s counsel sought to introduce it as a record of the appellant’s deteriorating mental health in the hospital.

[79]        In my view, once a witness had attested to the authenticity of the hospital record and it was admitted into evidence on the voir dire without objection, the judge should have admitted relevant portions of the record as prima facie proof of the facts recorded therein. Those facts included observations made by medical staff regarding the patient’s behaviour and the type and quantity of drugs administered to him.

[80]        Although she left it open to reconsideration, the constraint the judge placed upon the appellant’s counsel in his questioning of Ms. Reichenbach was inappropriate. In my view, there is no principled basis to preclude the appellant’s counsel from asking Ms. Reichenbach about any factual observation noted in the hospital record with respect to a relevant issue. The judge expressed some concern with respect to hearsay in the record, but Crown counsel did not object to the admission of the hospital record on that basis. Rightly so, because Ares v. Venner settled the question, described by Hall J. (at p. 622) in that case as: whether hospital records and nurses’ notes are “either admissible and prima facie evidence of the truth of the statements made therein or not admissible as being excluded by the hearsay rule”. They are admissible as evidence of the truth of facts recorded.