HSC waiting-room death triggers changes in patient protocols, family notifications

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This article was published 06/03/2025 (184 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba hospitals are being directed to speed up death notifications at the request of relatives who are mourning the loss of a 49-year-old man whose condition deteriorated during a lengthy wait for care.

Chad Giffin showed up to the Health Sciences Centre emergency room shortly after midnight on Jan. 7. Roughly eight hours later, staff members determined that Giffin was unresponsive and attempted to resuscitate him.

Ronalee Reynolds said she first learned about her brother’s death from a reporter who contacted her about 24 hours after he was pronounced dead.

“The public trustee’s office dropped the ball,” she said. “They weren’t keeping up, keeping his file updated with emergency contacts and with next-of-kin.”

Reynolds said she was later assured that the office attempted to contact her via a landline that she has not owned for the better part of the last decade.

Giffin had estranged himself from his family, who indicated he was vulnerable; he was living with mental illness and struggling with both drug addiction and housing insecurity.

When the legislative session resumed Wednesday, PC health critic Kathleen Cook condemned the government’s delays in releasing a critical incident report and sought an update on its status.

“Manitobans are still waiting — waiting for details on what happened, waiting for answers and waiting for real action to prevent such a tragedy from happening again,” Cook told the house.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the province’s priority has been listening to Giffin’s family and providing them with “the information that they deserve.”

Giffin’s family asked that public trustee, who administers estates when there is no designated will executor, can get information to patients’ next-of-kin “right away,” Asagwara said.

“We immediately gave direction to all (health authority) CEOs to review and amend those specific policies, as it relates to notification of next-of-kin…. That policy work and change has been done,” the minister said.

Asagwara noted that 44 unit assistants have been tapped to take vital signs in ERs and those staff members will participate in monthly training sessions going forward.

A “waiting room search protocol” was also developed and implemented last month, the minister said.

Reynolds said her family has been “very appreciative” of the response from the health minister and HSC, both of which have been eager to take their suggestions and make subsequent changes.

“They have been nothing but helpful in helping us get what we needed, in regards to closure, any kind of answers,” she said, adding her family has never held health-care workers responsible for what happened to her brother.

Four deaths were deemed “critical incidents” between April 1 and June 30,per the province’s latest quarterly report on unintended fatalities and serious injuries in local hospitals.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca