Man dies outside Trois-Rivières hospital after waiting 2 hours to be admitted
Patient was triaged, but his condition was deemed not a priority for the ER
The ambulance service in Trois-Rivières, Que. is sounding the alarm after an elderly man died in a hospital's garage this week, after waiting more than two hours for treatment.
It's a situation paramedics in the Mauricie region had been fearing, saying long backlogs at the hospital's emergency department are becoming increasingly common.
According to Richard Fournier, the vice president of the ambulance union in the Mauricie (CAM), paramedics picked up the man and took him to the Centre hospitalier affilié universitaire régional (CHAUR).
When they arrived, he said there were already five or six other ambulances waiting in the garage.
Fournier said the patient was triaged by a nurse who determined his condition was not a priority, and he was forced to wait in the ambulance.
"What we're seeing right now is that it's not a one-off situation, it's recurrent," he said of the backlog.
After a little more than two hours, Fournier said the patient went into cardiac arrest. He said paramedics did everything they could to revive him and notified the hospital, but the man died in the ambulance.
"If the hospital had been able to take care of him, to take him to see a doctor more quickly ... well, the patient would probably still be alive today," said Fournier.
Health board to investigate
Last week, the CAM ambulance union denounced long wait times at the Trois-Rivières hospital, saying that in recent weeks, up to nine ambulances could be seen waiting outside the CHAUR at once.
The regional health board, the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Québec (CIUSSS MCQ), said this isn't the norm, and blamed the backlog on occasional peak periods.
The CIUSSS MCQ confirmed the man's death and says it will investigate the circumstances.
With files from Lauren McCallum and Radio-Canada