33-hour ER wait highlights health system challenges: St. B patient

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This article was published 17/01/2024 (598 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There was nothing for Jane Goodridge to do but wait.

After unexpectedly collapsing Jan. 14, the 61-year-old Winnipeg woman sought treatment at the St. Boniface Hospital emergency department. It took more than 33 consecutive hours before she would be admitted.

The timeframe shocked Goodridge and highlighted the many challenges faced by patients and health-care staff who are “doing the best they can with what they’ve got.”

“There are complications beyond just the obvious wait times,” Goodridge said by phone Wednesday. “There’s other issues that are much deeper… It’s nobody’s fault, but maybe this experience will bring even more attention to what needs to be done.”

After checking in Sunday evening, Goodridge was not admitted to an in-patient treatment bed until early Tuesday. She was discharged around 1 p.m. that afternoon.

Goodridge described a disorienting and uncertain hospital stay, with dozens of people — including many who appeared to be in the throes of mental illness and addictions — also waiting for hours.

Overwhelmed staff rushed throughout the department, triaging, treating and monitoring patients who lined the hallways in stretcher beds. Police officers waited among the crowd before patients in their custody could be admitted, treated or discharged.

Goodridge said she saw people leave the ER at several points, either out of frustration or due to safety concerns from other unruly patients.

Due to privacy legislation, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority could not confirm how long Goodridge waited.

“All hospitals in Winnipeg continue to deal regularly with over-capacity, with a high volume of patients across our in-patient units impacting patient flow, leading to blocked treatment spaces in the emergency departments,” a spokesperson said via email.

“As such, wait times in our emergency departments and urgent care centres are higher than we would like them to be.”

The WRHA pointed to co-ordinated efforts underway to manage the current volumes and wait times across the city.

Facility staff are hosting daily patient safety meetings throughout the WRHA, and all sites are assigning staff to monitor and reassess waiting patients.

The Concordia and Grace hospitals are rescheduling some elective orthopedic surgeries to bolster capacity, and some inpatient surgery cases are being switched to day surgery.

Allied health staff are being offered voluntary overtime hours to assist with patient discharges, while community nurses are being asked to pick up additional shifts at hospitals. Nurses working as managers, educators and in corporate or leadership roles are also picking up shifts, WRHA said.

“In recent days, we have seen some easing of volume pressures in our hospitals. However, it is too soon to say whether we are through this surge yet. Health-care staff and physicians, as always, deserve recognition and our gratitude for going above and beyond right now to provide safe care to everyone who needs it.”

Around 4 p.m. Wednesday, 80 patients were present at the St. Boniface ER, facing an average wait time of 11 hours, according to WRHA’s online tracker.

Among them was Elizabeth Hopkins, who arrived around noon, suffering symptoms of a pre-diagnosed blood disorder.

“I’m just wanting somebody to help me,” she told the Free Press, speaking by phone from inside the hospital.

Hopkins also visited St. B on Sunday, around the same time as Goodridge, and said she waited six hours before being admitted to an in-patient bed at midnight. She signed herself out the following morning, after being unable to speak with a doctor beyond her initial assessment, Hopkins said.

Her condition continued to deteriorate, forcing her to return Wednesday. Expressing serious concerns about her health status, Hopkins said she has spoken with other patients who claim to have been waiting for more than 24 hours.

Elsewhere Wednesday afternoon, at the Grace (67 patients) and HSC (90 patients) emergency departments, wait times were at 8.5 and 8.25 hours, respectively.

“It’s definitely not acceptable for anyone to have to wait those kinds of hours to be seen,” Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said in an email.

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“Triage nurses do their very best to rank patients in order of health concerns, so that nobody is overlooked. However, things can change quickly, as we know, and spreading patients out too far, such as down a hallway or out of sight, is not only unacceptable but can result in critical injuries.”

A recent investment from the provincial government to expand patient discharge services to seven days per week should provide relief in emergency departments, but additional measures are needed, Jackson said.

“We also need to have institutional safety officers at every emergency department, open beds to keep patients flowing through the system and the staff to care for them.”

In a statement, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said: “Emergency rooms are feeling the consequences of years of cuts from the previous government … our government has taken action to add beds and capacity across the system, to relieve the pressure on ERs and to help patients move through the hospital and get home faster. We’re facing a big challenge, but lowering wait times is our No. 1 commitment.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.