A plea to fix our Grace Hospital ER

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/05/2021 (1851 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A couple weeks ago, I received a call from a community member who shared that her 93-year-old mother had been brought to the Grace Hospital emergency room for medical attention, and that instead of receiving a room while in care, she had instead been left on a stretcher in the ER hallway for a total of four nights, without any ability to properly sleep.

When I called the hospital to advocate on behalf of the family, I was shocked to learn that not only would she likely be waiting longer, but that there were others who had in fact been waiting even longer than she had to access a room.

Thanks to the willingness of this family to share their experience publicly in the media, others reached out to my office to share information about what they’ve seen happening in the Grace ER. What I’ve learned from these conversations and research is that the Grace ER is currently wildly understaffed, there’s a 20 per cent shortage of nurses, that it is consistently overrun with patients, and that it is not uncommon for patients to be left in hallways, or ‘comfort zones’, which are simply banks of comforters, to wait for days on end until a room becomes available.

Without exception, each person I spoke with shared that the cause of these challenges can be tied directly to the fact that our current PC government closed three out of six Winnipeg based over the last five years.

The closure of these ERs created a massive increase in the number of patients being routed to the Grace for emergency care, but this increase in patient volumes wasn’t matched with an increase in available space or staffing.

Folks, we have a crisis happening in our local emergency room, and the PCs do not seem interested in doing anything about it. Doctors, nurses, and health-care aides have been working like heroes to provide the best care possible in this environment, but it cannot be sustained much longer.

I have urged west Winnipeg government MLAs Scott Johnston and Scott Fielding to take immediate action in response to these concerns but have not heard back. We cannot accept that more of our community members will be left in ER hallways for days on end just so the PCs can save a few dollars. Enough is enough.

West Winnipeggers deserve to be confident in the quality of their local emergency medical services, and I am committed to continue fighting until this confidence can be restored. 

If you have any questions or comments about the information I’ve shared, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our office by phone at 204-792-8779, or by email at adrien.sala@yourmanitoba.ca.

Adrien Sala
St. James MLA constituency report

Adrien Sala is the NDP MLA for St. James.

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