The woman said her 75-year-old aunt, who did not want her name used, but agreed to have her story told, received good medical care during the nearly 24 hours she spent in the emergency department.
However, during her time in the emergency department, she was allowed to see very little of her family members, was only fed one cup of juice and some cookies by hospital staff, and was kept sitting up in a wheelchair many hours in a row.
“They did not neglect the part that the doctor needed to do,” Démoré said.
“The thing is, they neglected her as an elderly person, I would think. She was not defending herself because she thought ‘If I defend myself, I’m not going to get the care I need.’”
Démoré said she’s “hurt,” thinking about not only her aunt, but other people who have had similar experiences at the hospital.
“This is not right,” she said. “This is almost elder abuse. To leave people like that with no contact with family, no food, no drink ... That’s where I draw the line. There’s no reason for that. They say ‘Brand new hospital. Blah, blah.’ Fine. But I’ve never even see anything close to that in our older sites.”
Démoré’s aunt was brought to the emergency department by her 80-year-old husband at around 6:45 p.m., April 1.
She had undergone a mastectomy two months earlier, and her oncologist told her to go to the emergency department because he was worried she may be developing blood clots.
The woman is also already frail from previous medical problems, Démoré said.
Démoré, who said she looks out for the Val Caron couple because their children live far away, in Windsor, Ont., was asked to check up on them at around 11 a.m., April 2 because nobody in the family had heard from them.
Démoré’s uncle had been sitting in the waiting area outside the emergency room, without taking a meal or rest break, because he was afraid his wife might be released.
He did not understand how to use a phone set up in the waiting area for family members to get updates from medical personnel on a patient’s condition, she said.
“I went to emerg, and my uncle was not knowing what to do,” Démoré said.
Diane Baigrie (right), Sudbury Regional Hospital’s emergency department clinical manager, seen here with Dr. Andrew Caruso, medical director of the hospital’s emergency department, said the hospital does its best to care for patients, despite outside pressures. Photo by Heidi Ulrichsen
“Because she didn’t have that, the husband wasn’t allowed to go in and check up on his wife.”
Diane Baigrie, clinical manager of the emergency department, said she cannot respond in the media to a specific patient’s complaints because of privacy legislation.
However, she said that, in general, whether or not a patient can have visitors depends on how ill they are.
Less ill patients are not allowed to have visitors, unless there’s a good reason for them to be accompanied, such as if they are a child or have severe dementia. More ill patients are restricted to one visitor each.
She said the family members are allowed in to the emergency department when the doctor is providing an assessment of the patient’s condition.
Baigrie said this policy is in place because of lack of space in the emergency department.
As for who gets a room, Baigrie said rooms are available in the emergency department for all patients, except those in the least ill category, or the green zone.
Baigrie said she invites anyone who has a concern about emergency room treatment to phone her at 523-7100, ext. 1053.
Patients with concerns about hospital treatment also have the option of phoning the institution’s patient representative, Melanie Hinton, at 523-7100, ext. 3737. Démoré said she phoned Hinton and discussed the situation with her.
“This is not right. This is almost elder abuse. To leave people ... with no contact with family, no food, no drink...That’s where I draw the line.”
Suzette Démoré,
niece of emergency room patient
At 1 p.m., Démoré said she was able to speak with the emergency room nurse caring for her aunt on the phone, and convinced the woman to let her uncle in to visit with her aunt for five minutes. While Démoré was later eating lunch with her uncle, he told her his wife was still sitting in the same wheelchair as when he brought her into the emergency department.
“That’s a sight I will never forget...I saw her sitting there with a blanket on her shoulders. I could only see the back part of her. That breaks your heart,” she said.
After several unsuccessful attempts to get through to the emergency department by phone, Démoré was able to speak to the emergency room nurse caring for her aunt.
“I said ‘Is it true? My uncle said she’s been sitting in a (wheelchair) since she was brought in April 1,’” she said.
“She said ‘Yeah. But we changed her chairs.’ I said ‘What do you mean you changed her chairs?’ She said ‘We don’t have a bed and we’re very busy. I said ‘There’s a bed in the hallway that was empty. I could bring it in for you.’
“She said ‘No, no. We don’t have room. We can’t put a bed in the hallway in the emerg area.’”
At around 5:30 p.m., Démoré was allowed into the emergency department to stay with her aunt.
Démoré said her aunt was actually given a bed in the late afternoon, when her doctor needed to conduct an examination.
Démoré said her aunt was released from the emergency department at 6:30 p.m. April 2, nearly 24 hours after she was admitted.
Baigrie said although the emergency department, which was transferred to the one-site hospital March 28, is now located in modern, spacious environment, it continues to experience outside pressures that affect the care it provides.
The emergency department cares for quite a few in-patients while they wait for hospital beds, she said.
Beds aren’t available right away for all patients because alternate level of care (ALC) patients, or those who no longer need acute care but cannot find placement in a nursing home, are still occupying the hospital.
Baigrie said the emergency department is also seeing patients who are a lot sicker.
“For the last two weeks, we pulled the statistics on the flow through the department. There was an abnormally large amounts of really, really high acuity patients,” she said.
Baigrie said the emergency room staff do their best to care for patients.
“No nurse wants a patient to wait,” she said. “No doctor wants a patient to wait. We’re very, very sorry if people have not had an optimal experience in the emergency department. I do want them to know it’s not from a lack of empathy, sympathy, or feeling that we don’t want to help them. Because we do.”
