On Wednesday morning, a 70-year-old Canadian woman died after waiting six hours in a hospital emergency room due to a shortage of care.
According to Dutch Radio, a woman in Kamloops, British Columbia, died while waiting for treatment at the Royal Inland Hospital. The woman’s daughter, Amanda Young, told the news agency that her sister took her mother to the hospital at around 8pm on Tuesday evening because she began to complain of stomach pains.
There, Yang said that her mother’s vital signs were checked and they found that her potassium content was very low.
They were still not receiving care at around 2am on Wednesday, so Young’s sister checked their mother’s pulse to see her condition, but she didn’t feel it. Yang said that when her sister looked at their mother, she didn’t seem to be there and she started yelling for help. The hospital staff tried to resuscitate the woman, but failed.
“She’s gone,” Yang said.
Other witnesses at the scene said this situation made other people waiting in the room “very sad” as well as being “slammed”.
Although Young didn’t ask her sister what the waiting room was like, she said that it was described as full and there was no help. She added that due to her mother’s symptoms and shortage of staff, they chose to classify the patients and wait.
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There is a shortage of staff throughout the Royal Inland Hospital, but this shortage is most obvious in the emergency room. According to reports, nearly two-thirds of the hospital’s staff have resigned or transferred due to burnout caused by the pandemic. Radio netherlands The report stated that 13 of the 17 beds in the intensive care unit were occupied.
“It’s hard. I don’t want to blame anyone, because obviously, these things happen to people. Anyway, this is not a real problem for us. This is obviously making our mothers sad. In general , We also hope and pray that this will not happen to other people,” Yang said.
The Royal Inland Hospital issued a statement saying that they could not explain the situation, but would review all accidental deaths to determine what happened. They said their priority is to “ensure that emergency department patients are classified and treated in a timely manner, and that they receive care according to their urgent needs.”
The staff shortage in this Canadian hospital is similar to the shortage of nurses in the United States, as employers have begun to provide incentives and sign bonuses to combat COVID burnout.
Weekly newspaper The Royal Inland Hospital has been contacted for comments.
