Glace Bay woman says local hospitals lack gowns for obese patients

When retired nurse Yvonne Campbell moved home to Glace Bay, she found a health-care system in a state of "utmost disrepair."

After being in and out of hospital over the past year, she felt moved to call attention to one gap in particular: the lack of hospital gowns in her size.

"I'm an obese, tall person," said Campbell.

She first encountered the problem several years ago, when she was still living away. During a visit home to Cape Breton she broke her arm.

"They went to get me into a johnny shirt, only to find that they didn't have any to fit me," she said.

"I'm bigger than the sizes they have: small, medium, large and extra-large. I'm bigger than that."

Over her 35-year career as a registered nurse, Campbell has worked in health-care facilities in Manitoba, Alberta, B.C., Nunavut and Maine.

"In every other place I've been at, even in Iqaluit ... they had the appropriate size for large-sized people."

Before moving home from Edmonton in 2014, she had the foresight to take two gowns from the hospital there.

"The manager from housekeeping gave me a couple. And I had patterns made from them to make myself some johnny shirts, just in case I would need them down here. And good thing I did."

Over the past year, Campbell has been a patient in three local hospitals, Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney, Northside General Hospital in North Sydney and Glace Bay Hospital.

Each time she supplied her own gowns, including for the entirety of a six-month stay at Glace Bay Hospital.

"Absolutely not one johnny shirt in the place to fit me. So my family had to be continuously cleaning them all the time," she said.

"But I don't think that is something I should have to be doing, is taking my own johnny shirts to the hospital."

She feels a lot of other Cape Bretoners must be dealing with the same frustration.

"You know, when I look around the waiting room there are lots of heavy, very heavy-set people."

According to Nova Scotia Health, larger gowns are available by request, but they're limited in number.

When not available, gowns can be sewn together to create a size that will fit.

"In the case of this patient, it appears there was an oversight in making such a request, and we would like to extend our apologies," said Michelle DePodesta, executive director of acute health services in an emailed statement.

NSH will work with care teams to ensure they are aware of that process, and it will review its gown supply, she said.