Man’s death prompts staffing change in city ERs

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This article was published 24/01/2025 (225 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government has taken interim staffing measures in emergency rooms since a 49-year-old patient died while waiting for care at Health Sciences Centre earlier this month.

Chad Giffin had been in HSC’s adult ER for about eight hours when one or more employees noticed his condition had deteriorated the morning of Jan. 7.

An expedited critical incident investigation is expected to conclude in about three weeks.

“There are interim measures that have been taken in terms of making sure staffing is where it needs to be, and that all efforts are being made to ensure that the capacity that’s needed in order to ensure people are receiving the best care possible in our emergency departments is happening,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the Free Press.

“The goal is always to have staffing at the baseline or above baseline. As a government, we’ve been working with Shared Health and across the system, quite frankly, to make sure that we have a good understanding of what’s going on on the front lines.”

While the government did not detail the steps taken, the Free Press understands the Manitoba Nurses Union has heard from front-line staff that ERs and urgent care centres were required to have a unit assistant assigned to waiting rooms by Jan. 22 to help monitor patients, and that no increases in baseline nursing staffing were communicated to nursing staff.

Shared Health, which operates HSC, gave Asagwara a preliminary update on the investigation’s status this week. The health authority has said the probe will look at all potentially contributing factors to the death.

The minister said final autopsy results, including toxicology findings, are expected by the end of next week. The investigation is expected to conclude two weeks later.

Investigations produce an internal report and, generally, recommendations for improvement or review within the health system in a bid to prevent similar incidents.

“Our focus is on making sure the critical incident review is done thoroughly, comprehensively and done well, and done in an aggressive timeline so we can get the recommendations and insights from the review needed to make any improvements or changes as we move forward,” Asagwara said.

The minister, who has talked to some of Giffin’s relatives by phone, said his death is a tragedy.

Giffin’s family said he was vulnerable due to a mental illness, health conditions and struggles with drug addiction and homelessness in his adult life.

They were told Friday the process of obtaining autopsy results is being sped up, after previously being informed it could take a year, his sister Ronalee Reynolds said.

“I think they are really making sure they get quick results, so anything that needs to be fixed gets rectified,” Reynolds said.

She said that while the accelerated process is good for her family, her thoughts are with families who continue to wait for autopsy results for their loved ones.

Reynolds said her family continues to go through a hard time since learning of the death of her brother, who estranged himself from relatives several years ago.

They were told he was picked up by an ambulance near the Salvation Army Winnipeg Centre of Hope after a concerned person called 911 because he was outside and looked cold.

He arrived at the ER shortly after midnight Jan. 7.

Shared Health 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.

He was pronounced dead shortly after staff noticed his condition had deteriorated at about 8 a.m.

The over-capacity ER had about 100 patients and 50 of them, including Giffin, in the waiting room that day.

The number of nurses on shift was just below the baseline of about 24, while a backlog prevented admitted ER patients from being moved to a bed, HSC chief operating officer Dr. Shawn Young said previously.

Giffin’s family was left wondering how many times he was reassessed, and if his death could have been prevented.

They said Young told them Giffin was known to ER staff.

Reynolds said her family doesn’t blame hospital staff for her brother’s death.

She would like to see ERs reopened at Concordia, Seven Oaks and Victoria hospitals. The former Tory government downgraded the ERs to urgent care centres.

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She would also welcome more alternatives for at-risk and vulnerable people to go to instead of an ER.

Young has said some patients in the ER were seeking shelter and safety amid cold weather.

Giffin’s death raised comparisons to that of Brian Sinclair, 45, in 2008. Sinclair, an Indigenous man and double-amputee who used a wheelchair, died in the ER waiting room at HSC 34 hours after he arrived seeking treatment for a blocked urinary catheter.

An inquest judge concluded his death, caused by acute peritonitis (inflammation of the abdomen lining), was avoidable.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris 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.