N.S. party leaders say 86-year-old's lengthy ambulance wait unacceptable

Political party leaders in Nova Scotia have condemned an elderly man's three-hour wait for an ambulance earlier this week.

Ross O'Brien lives roughly five kilometres from Dartmouth General Hospital, but on Monday the 86-year-old lay in his driveway waiting for an ambulance for more than three hours after breaking his hip.

He was eventually taken to hospital in a police vehicle after an officer told the family they would be waiting another two hours for paramedics.

"It's unacceptable that someone would have to wait that long," Liberal Leader Iain Rankin said Wednesday when asked about the situation at a campaign stop in Cape Breton.

"I have asked through the deputy minister of health that we investigate this further, and we ensure that something like this doesn't happen again."

Rankin said that certain initiatives have "helped," but that more work is needed.

A new pilot project to speed up offloading times at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax involving nurses has been successful, Rankin said, and is modelled after one that launched at the Dartmouth General in 2017. 

Rankin said the province needs to make sure that they're hiring more paramedics and addressing the ongoing issue of ambulance wait times further.

"I want to extend my sympathies out to, and acknowledge, the situation with Mr. O'Brien, and we will do better," Rankin said.

Other major party leaders laid blame at the feet of the governing Liberals, saying they have not done enough to address a broken health-care system.

"I was horrified," PC leader Tim Houston said Wednesday. "It's completely unacceptable."

Houston said the government needs to better support paramedics, and his party has been upfront with how much money and time it will take to fix the system.

NDP Leader Gary Burrill said the situation points to the ongoing "systemic crisis" where ambulances are tied up offloading patients because emergency rooms are too full, since there's nowhere to put ER patients in hospitals because beds are full of people waiting for long-term care spots.

Burrill said the Liberals contributed to the problem by only opening 57 new long-term care beds in the past eight years.

"It is right that people should be chagrined and shocked to hear about it," Burrill said.

In a statement Wednesday, EHS Operations said the incident is "very concerning to us," and they are investigating the case.

EHS handles ambulance services in the province.

Janice Lake, O'Brien's daughter, said her father's hip surgery on Tuesday had gone well and he was in good spirits.

However, she said the incident has left her shaken and with little faith in the provincial health-care system.

Lake said her mother's two-year wait for a hip replacement is another symptom of the crisis, showing that there are "a lot of broken parts" in the province besides ambulance response.

She suggested the province bring in private ambulance companies as a short-term solution, so people aren't waiting hours for emergency care.

When asked whether Nova Scotia political leaders could promise anything to reassure her family, Lake said everyone is tired of words, and need to see action.

"It's time that they actually put something into place, that people can feel secure in calling 911 or going to an emergency [room] and not waiting 12 hours to see somebody," Lake said in an interview from her home in Dallas.

"There's so many stories, there's so many people to be heard. And I think somebody needs to start to listen and come up with a solution ... it needs to happen now."

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