Answers sought from Grace

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/08/2019 (2268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After her father was found crawling and calling for help, and another incident when he was allegedly assaulted in his room, a former nurse and manager at Grace Hospital says the Winnipeg facility’s response has been woefully inadequate.

Colleen Bytheway’s father, Jack Stewart, died of pulmonary hypertension at Riverview Health Centre on Oct. 12, 2018. In the months since, the University of Manitoba nursing faculty member has been fighting to get answers for her grieving mother.

“It was a difficult time, we didn’t feel heard,” Bytheway said of her father’s time at Grace Hospital from Aug. 5, 2018, to Sept. 25, 2018. “It felt like we were working against the system.”

Bytheway used to work as a nurse and manager at the Grace, and said patient care has suffered in recent years.

“There have been so many changes, and I think that’s inevitable, but I think the ‘care’ part in health care has been lost in the shuffle,” Bytheway said. She doesn’t blame front-line staff — many of whom she still knows.

“I think staff are working short(-staffed), they’re working with a lot of agency (temporary) staff that don’t know the areas and the patients… But it’s concerning, from a legal point of view.”

Bytheway said she and her mother both expressed concerns during Stewart’s stay at the Grace.

After his death, they reached out for answers, but Bytheway said her mother’s concerns were minimized during a phone call. After sending letters outlining their concerns — including an improper diet, two showers during his entire stay and the two “near-miss” incidents — they got a final letter on July 4.

The patient care manager wrote that an in-person meeting could be set up, but otherwise, “We feel that we have reviewed and responded to your concerns to the best of our ability and now consider the file closed.”

Bytheway said she was shocked.

“We didn’t feel heard, we didn’t feel that our experience was acknowledged at all,” she said. “We just wanted there to be some learning, and some apologies, that things didn’t go the way they should have gone.”

Two serious incidents never made it onto Stewart’s chart, and Grace Hospital has not apologized or acknowledged them, she said.

On Sept. 13, 2018, Bytheway said, her father’s roommate lunged at him in anger. Stewart wasn’t injured, but suffered emotional injuries, Bytheway said, as did her mother, who witnessed the incident.

She said three staff had to be called in to deal with the situation, and her father was moved to a different room, so it’s bizarre the incident wasn’t recorded.

Grace patient relations officer Pamela Gunn Matheson called the incident “concerning” in an emailed response to the family, but also said, “I do not know what date to which you are referring.”

“You can’t just say because it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happen.” – Colleen Bytheway

However, in a previous letter, a hospital representative had written, “I am pleased staff were able to assist him when he encountered an issue with his roommate’s behaviour.”

Stewart had pulmonary hypertension and, toward the end of his life, would become short of breath without an oxygen tank, Bytheway said.

He was watching a football game with his son in a Grace recreation room when “his portable oxygen ran out, and there was just nobody around to help,” Bytheway said. “My brother had gone out to move his car and he found dad on all fours, saying, ‘Help me, help me,’ completely out of breath, blue.

“These things happen, it’s not that they don’t, but again, there’s nothing mentioned (in his chart) about that, and again no acknowledgment, like, ‘Sorry that happened’… Nothing, at all,” she said. “It was extremely frightening for my brother at the time.”

In both incidents, Bytheway said, an RL6 documentation form — used to document “near-miss” incidents — should have been filled out.

“You can’t just say because it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happen,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said there has been ongoing communication between the family and hospital.

“First and foremost, we extend our sympathies to the family on their loss,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We are committed to providing the best care possible for all patients, and continue to offer the opportunity to meet personally with the family to hear their concerns in greater detail in an effort to identify areas for improvement to the care we provide, and to share all information we have available.”

Bytheway said there were also issues with her father’s care at Riverview, where he went after Grace, but that her family’s concerns were heard and they were satisfied with the apology they received.

She said more patient advocates are needed, because as much as her family has struggled to get answers, at least she has the medical knowledge to demand more.

“I think we’re not alone — I think a lot of families just don’t know where to turn and what to do,” she said.

“It’s important from a patient safety… perspective, because if we can’t acknowledge those experiences are real, how can we learn from them? How can we make improvements?”

tvanderhart@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @tessavanderhart