Reprimanded BC Nurse Faces Potential $163,000 Legal Cost From Nursing College Over Gender Remarks

Amy Hamm, a nurse from Vancouver, B.C., is seen in a file photo. Courtesy of Amy Hamm/JCCF

A British Columbia nurse found guilty of professional misconduct for remarks made online about gender issues may now be asked by the provincial nurses college to pay more than $163,000 in legal fees.

The BC College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM) determined in a March 13 ruling that Amy Hamm was guilty of “unprofessional conduct” and could now request the nurse pay $163,053 to reimburse the legal costs associated with the inquiry into her comments. The college is also looking at suspending Hamm’s licence for three months.

The requests were submitted by BCCNM lawyer Michael Seaborn to the disciplinary panel on May 29.

BCCNM spokesperson Johanna Ward told the Epoch Times that a request for the guilty party to pay legal fees is a part of the regulatory disciplinary process.

“Costs may be awarded to the successful party, in this case the College, to partially offset the cost of running a hearing,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “The College has made its submissions to the Discipline Committee regarding the penalty and costs sought. Ms. Hamm and her counsel have the opportunity to respond to those submissions. Ultimately, the Discipline Committee will decide what, if any, order to make on penalty and costs.”

Hamm has vowed to fight any compensation demand the college makes.

“Unfortunately for them, I am not a weak person,” she said in a June 2 social media post. “I reject their lies, and their punishment, and will fight to see that they never see a penny… I will fight to see that they are punished for what they’ve done.”

In a previous social media post she criticized the financial penalty while noting she had lost her job over the issue.

“Their latest move is to try to take $163,053 dollars from me, a single mother, to pay for their … persecution that I wanted nothing to do with,” Hamm wrote in a June 1 social media post. “I already lost my 13 year job because of them.”

Gender Comments Case

The case against Hamm stems back to 2020 when she co-sponsored a billboard in Vancouver that read, “I [love] JK Rowling,” referring to the British author’s public defence of women’s right to female-only spaces, such as prisons, restrooms, and sporting events.

Complaints from some individuals to the BCCNM accused Hamm of being “transphobic” and urged that she be restricted from nursing.

The college launched an inquiry into the matter and accused Hamm of making “discriminatory and derogatory statements regarding transgender people” in connection with comments she made in podcasts, videos, and on social media between 2018 and 2021.

Hearings into the matter began in September 2022, with a panel of the Discipline Committee of the BCCNM issuing its final decision in March.

The disciplinary panel determined that Hamm’s decision to refer to herself as a nurse in the biographies of three articles and in one podcast connected her commentary on gender issues to her profession, thereby subjecting them to regulatory review.

The panel said Hamm made “discriminatory and/or derogatory” statements in the article and podcast and accused her of making statements that were “untruthful and unfair as they challenge the existence of transgender women, argue for less constitutional protection for transgender women, and are designed, in part, to elicit fear, contempt and outrage against members of the transgender community.”

The panel found that her social media activity in which she was not identified as a nurse could not be ruled misconduct, because it would restrict her freedom of speech.

Hamm has appealed the guilty ruling in the B.C. Supreme Court. Her appeal says the BCCNM discipline committee panel erred by expanding the scope of discrimination accusations to include disagreement with gender ideology and transgenderism.

The filing also argues that the panel’s decision favours one group over another by putting gender ideology over the Charter rights of women.