ER pizza delivery lifts spirits at QEH

The emergency department at Queen Elizabeth Hospital got an unexpected surprise Tuesday night, when the owner of a local restaurant turned up with pizza to feed everyone in the waiting room.

Todd MacKinnon, franchise owner of the Pizza Pizza location in Charlottetown, was on his way home from his son's hockey game when he got a text from a friend who was waiting in the emergency room.

MacKinnon said his friend told him the ER was really busy and some patients, who had been waiting hours to see a doctor, were getting frustrated and hadn't eaten.

So, he had the restaurant start making pizzas and delivered them to the waiting room. 

"I thought hey what a great opportunity to become the difference between the feeling of being a drip in the ocean compared to maybe being the whole ocean in one drop," MacKinnon said. "You know, you look for the support of the community when you do business so sometimes you've got to support the community back too."

'A little bit of kindness goes a long way' 

The staff at the QEH said it was a small gesture that had a huge impact. 

Tracy Bruce, an emergency registration clerk in the emergency department, said there were more than 20 patients in the waiting room and some of them had been there for over eight hours. With many people getting stressed by the long wait, she said moods in the room were diminishing quickly.

She said as soon as MacKinnon walked in, the atmosphere in the department completely changed.

"That waiting room went from people who were getting frustrated with the wait to people who were smiling, laughing, they started talking to each other," Bruce said.

She said the pizza delivery was an act of kindness she's never seen in the emergency department before and it's something she'll always remember.

"My heart warmed the moment that I saw the reaction of these people. A little bit of kindness goes a long way."

Long waits, more patients

Staff at the hospital say wait times in the ER have been longer than normal over the past several days because more patients have been coming through the door.

Mike MacDonald, manager of the emergency department at QEH, said moving admitted patients out of the ER and into other parts of the hospital has also been a challenge.

He said MacKinnon had received permission from one of the doctors on duty to bring the pizzas into the waiting room, and the gesture meant a lot to all the waiting patients and the staff at the hospital. 

"I've been nursing for over 23 years and I've never seen that happen at any emergency department that I've worked at," MacDonald said. 

"It's amazing how such small things impact people in such large ways," he said. "I think the patients were certainly very appreciative of it."

MacKinnon said seeing how something as simple as a pizza could change someone's day for the better made him want to find more ways to support the hospital and its patients in the future.

"It certainly put a smile on everybody's face, including mine," MacKinnon said.

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