An inquest jury's finding yesterday opened far more doors than it closed, with a single word. 

The word: ``Homicide.'' 

With this word, the four jurors assured that homicide investigators and crown prosecutors must examine the 10-year-old girl's death and determine how and whether to proceed. 

With this word, the College of Nurses and the College of Physicians and Surgeons will be involved. 

And with this word, the Hospital for Sick Children must begin some deep soul-searching. It must begin, too, to repair the deep wounds it has inflicted on itself. 

The fact is that Lisa should not have died. She was admitted to hospital with non-life threatening pain. She was given morphine. She died with monitors silent. 

Her death, the jury said, was a result of a ``probable complex drug interaction leading to cardiac and respiratory arrest.'' Her mother, dozing by her bed, awoke to find doctors desperately trying to revive her. 

Truly the word homicide was not expected by the hospital or anyone else. ``We are deeply shocked by the verdict,'' said Dr. Alan Goldbloom, speaking on behalf of the hospital after the verdict was made public. 

But since, as a matter of law, the verdict is a finding of ``fact, not fault'' - in the coroner's description - it seems quite clear that shock is precisely the effect the jury wanted to achieve. 

What happened in the hours leading to the 10-year-old's death hardly qualified as deserving of even a reputation for mediocre care. She wasn't monitored. Doctors' orders were not read, much less followed. 

Homicide is the jury's way of saying that Lisa wouldn't have died if she'd not been in Sick Kids. 

What happened after her death was even more troubling. Orders and notes were taken away and given to the coroner only when he ordered it. Other evidence was lost. During the inquest, a jury was finally driven to use the word cover-up. 

Seven recommendations, in fact, are directed to telling the hospital how to act with coroners. 

One recommends that ``when the family of a deceased patient requests detailed information about the circumstances of the child's death, every effort should be undertaken to respond quickly, accurately and openly.'' 

A hospital for sick children has had to be told by an inquest jury that it should tell a grieving mother how her daughter died! 

This recommendation tells Sick Kids - almost as coldly as the word homicide - how far it has to go to again match the reality of its care to its reputation.