Aides to check on patients waiting at HSC emergency in wake of death Report into death of 49-year-old in January lists 17 recommendations By: Chris Kitching Posted: 5:32 PM CDT Thursday, May. 1, 2025

Manitoba’s emergency rooms will use more non-nursing staff to check on patients in waiting rooms after a man died in the Health Sciences Centre ER in January.

Chad Giffin, 49, had been waiting in the province’s busiest ER for about eight hours when staff noticed his condition had deteriorated. He was pronounced dead a short time later.

His death on Jan. 7 led to a critical incident review, which produced 17 recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths in ERs across Manitoba.

“That particular situation, that tragedy, provided opportunities for us as a system to improve and to learn, and that work continues to be done,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said at an unrelated event Thursday.

HSC officials had said Giffin was assessed, triaged as low acuity, or less urgent, and directed to the waiting room with instructions to speak to staff if his condition changed or worsened.

The over-capacity ER had about 100 patients, including 50 in the waiting room.

At the time, officials said the number of nurses on shift was just below the baseline. A government spokeswoman said Thursday staffing was later confirmed to be at the baseline. A backlog, or access block, prevented admitted ER patients from being moved to a bed elsewhere.

Among the 17 recommendations, the province said training was implemented for 15 health-care aides to conduct checks on patients in the hospital ER, along with one health-care aide position to provide 24-7 coverage. A further 44 unit assistants were added to support the work.

The purpose is to improve patient monitoring and ease pressure on nurses.

“What we’ve done, as a government, is make sure that consistently across our emergency departments not only are they staffing to baseline, but going above that by utilizing the skills of health-care aides who are trained and have the tools to do assessments like vital signs and other things that can help ensure people are getting care in the emergency department,” Asagwara said.

Margaret Schroeder, president of CUPE Local 204, which represents health-care aides at HSC, said additional community support workers were assigned to the HSC emergency department after the death of Brian Sinclair in 2008.

Schroeder said she welcomes steps to improve the system, but they must come with proper funding and ensure they don’t overload health-care aides or support workers.

Other recommendations include an internal waiting room surge protocol, improvements to patient oversight and communication, and larger system-wide measures to improve wait times and patient flow.

Asagwara said action has been taken on all of the 17 recommendations. The review’s findings and recommendations were shared with Giffin’s family.

“That tragedy provided opportunities for us as a system to improve and to learn, and that work continues to be done.”–Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara

His sister, Ronalee Reynolds, said her family is satisfied with the review and the steps taken by the province and Shared Health, which operates HSC.

She said her family does not place blame on front-line staff nor any fault on Shared Health. Some recommendations will require additional employees, she noted.

“I just hope that they do get the staffing. I think that is the biggest issue,” Reynolds said.

Initially, Giffin’s family had a number of questions, including what caused his death and how many times he was assessed between the time he arrived and the time he was found unresponsive.

Reynolds said a report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner listed her brother’s primary cause of death as acute bacterial pneumonia.

After arriving just before midnight and being triaged, he was checked in the waiting room at about 2:30 a.m. and 5 a.m., she said.

Giffin’s vital signs and breathing were good, and his oxygen levels were fine, Reynolds said.

“Everything was normal. There was no reason for them to believe he had pneumonia to begin with,” she said.

At about 7 a.m. — about an hour before staff noticed his condition had worsened — he told an employee he was fine.

“They didn’t do any checks because he was alert, and he said he was OK and he didn’t need anything,” Reynolds said.

Giffin, who had been homeless and struggled with mental health issues and addictions, was under the care of the public guardian and trustee. Paramedics took him to the ER after he was found outside in the cold by a concerned person near Main Street and Henry Avenue.

Reynolds was informed that her brother, who estranged himself from his family about a decade ago, told the public guardian and trustee he had no next of kin.

“I just hope that they do get the staffing. I think that is the biggest issue.”–Ronalee Reynolds, Chad Giffin’s sister

Giffin’s family learned about his death from a journalist. Reynolds has said a Shared Health official contacted her three days after the death to confirm Giffin was the man who had died in the ER, prompting concerns about next-of-kin notification processes.

At the family’s request, health authorities were instructed to amend policies when it comes to notifying the next of kin of patients under the care of the public guardian and trustee.

There were also questions about the communication between Shared Health and Asagwara’s department after Giffin died.

Internal emails obtained by the Globe and Mail through a freedom of information request showed deputy health minister Scott Sinclair found out about Giffin’s death hours later and after it was reported by media.

On Thursday, Asagwara said they and their office were notified of the death “not soon enough.”

“The information did not flow as quickly as it should have,” they said. “As the minister, there are a few things that are fundamentally important in terms of how our relationships with regional health authorities and leaders across the system function.”

“Accountability, transparency and communication are key, whether you’re talking about finances… or tragedies,” the minister said.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca