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Staff shortages have led to the closure of emergency rooms across B.C. And last week, a Lions Gate patient died after being in the waiting room for two days.
Publication date:
July 21, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 5 minutes read • 5 comments Emergency entrance at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
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An elderly woman died last week after lying on a stretcher for at least two days in the waiting room of a North Vancouver hospital. It’s another sign, health professionals say, of growing staff shortages in B.C.’s overcrowded emergency rooms.
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Vancouver Coastal Health declined to directly confirm the July 11 death or provide any details, citing privacy laws, but said in an email Thursday that it is “conducting a thorough review of the incident and which will recommend improvements where appropriate.”
Postmedia learned of the death on Monday, but Health Minister Adrian Dix declined all week to be interviewed for this story, instead directing questions to the health authority.
His ministry issued a statement saying, in part, “We realize there are deep anxieties at this time with news of emergency department diversions and busy waiting rooms.
“We want people to know that when they arrive at the hospital, they are safe and that, even during busy times, there is a standard triage system so that regardless of bed availability, patients are seen by a doctor as soon as possible.”
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However, both the Ministry of Health and Vancouver Coastal Health publicly offered their condolences to the patient’s family, thus confirming that there was a death at the hospital.
Last weekend, hospital emergency rooms in Clearwater, Port McNeill, Port Hardy, Oliver and Ashcroft temporarily closed due to staff shortages. Global News reported that an Ashcroft woman died of a heart attack Sunday while her local emergency room was closed and the nearest ambulance was half an hour away.
This was preceded by several emergency rooms temporarily closing in the spring, and in June, patients at the Squamish maternity hospital were redirected to Metro Vancouver hospitals for several days.
It is a crisis that is not limited to BC, but is unfolding across Canada.
However, health officials here were tight-lipped this week about the North Vancouver case and, more broadly, what solutions are needed to address staffing shortages.
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Postmedia spoke with four people who work at Lions Gate, who requested anonymity, to gather information about the woman’s death.
She was admitted on Saturday July 9 for possible heart problems and was put on a stretcher. There were no hospital beds available, so he stayed in a corner of the waiting room.
There was initially no indication that she needed to be put on a heart monitoring machine, but by mid-afternoon on July 11 she was found unresponsive, never having left the crowded waiting room.
A veteran Lions Gate nurse’s voice breaks and she pauses to control her emotions before explaining that the nurses had 12 to 17 patients to monitor while they were in the waiting room that day, along with the triage tasks His colleagues did their best, he said, but they needed more staff to give these patients the proper care and detect if they were beginning to show symptoms of distress.
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“All the nurses, when they gave reports, said she was very sweet,” the nurse said of the woman who died. “She’s with it, she’s understanding, she’s patient. His daughter was here the whole time. They are lovely people. They weren’t mad at us. They understood it. They were flexible. They were so lovely.”
The nurse asked that her name be withheld so she wouldn’t get in trouble at work for speaking out.
There is no privacy for patients who are kept in the waiting room. This woman had the most private place: she was hidden behind a blanket thrown over a shoulder-height partition that was raised to block the COVID droplets.
A Code Blue, which alerts staff to a life-threatening emergency, was called when nurses heard one of their colleagues scream for help and saw her performing CPR on the woman. The woman was rushed to an intensive care unit, where the staff did everything possible to try to save her.
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This type of death in the waiting room is unusual, the nurse said, but unfortunately it’s not the first time it’s happened at Lions Gate. She blames a chronic understaffing.
Patients can’t be moved out of the waiting room until a suitable bed is available for them in another ward of the hospital, but those beds are regularly full, the nurse said. He added that because the ER can’t turn away patients, the volumes can only go up and up and up.
“I’m trying to select someone at the desk and I’m literally yelling at them because of the volume of people and ambulances coming in,” he said.
“The moral anguish of that waiting room, the list of things you can’t do, is heartbreaking.”
In response to detailed questions about this case, VCH said only that “this individual was evaluated by a physician and received care from Lions Gate staff,” but did not provide any details.
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The statement also said that as the health system recovers from the impacts of the pandemic, staff are working hard “to meet the health care needs of local communities.”
BC Union of Nurses president Aman Grewal said only VCH could release details of the incident, but noted that its members have expressed concerns about it.
“We heard from the nurses at Lions Gate Hospital, talking about a morally distressing situation that occurred there and saying that the emergency department there is in crisis,” he said. “They’re understaffed, and that’s happening across BC, across Canada, but they really felt the brunt of it last week.”
And it’s a major problem in many urban hospitals, not just rural ones, Grewal added.
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“It’s not just isolated to Lions Gate. It’s happening with Royal Columbian. It’s happening at Eagle Ridge and Ridge Meadows. It’s happening everywhere, Surrey Memorial, Langley Memorial.”
Another nurse at Lions Gate said that during that July 9-11 window, every wall in the emergency department waiting room was covered with stretchers.
“We are chronically understaffed. The (department) is usually at least four to eight nurses short,” she said. “In the (department) that weekend … there were four (patients) who had been in the department for over 100 hours waiting, waiting.”
At an unrelated news conference on Monday, Health Minister Adrian Dix said persistent emergency room closures are a “major problem”. He said the staff shortage is largely caused by health workers calling in sick and insisted the province and health authorities are working to recruit and retain employees.
lculbert@postmedia.com
dfumano@postmedia.com
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