Sask. health region vows to make improvements in wake of patient's death

Officials with the Cypress Hills health region say they will work to make improvements after a review into the death of a man who waited hours to be seen in the emergency room at the Swift Current hospital.

Mike Line was 45 years old.

His father Bryan says Mike had a history of heart problems and went to the emergency room in mid-August complaining of shortness of breath and pains in his right side.

Line waited for three-and-a-half hours before he collapsed in the waiting room and died in the hospital.

Dr. Ivo Radevski, senior medical officer in the region, says there were a number of factors that contributed in this case.

"The workload in the department was quite heavy at that particular time," he said. 

In addition, Radevski says, the way the patient presented his symptoms "did not lend itself to being assigned a high level of acuity" which meant that  patients were deemed to require more urgent care than Line.

Radevski says a "root causes analysis" of the case was completed today and the results shared with the family. 

Health region promises to make improvements 

For instance, Radevski says a review found there was a bottleneck when it came to assessing patients at the hospital. As a result, it plans to create more examination rooms for doctors to see patients more quickly.

The health region is also looking to adopt software that will alert staff to a patient who has not been seen within the recommended period of time.

Radevski says the region will also re-jig some nursing shifts and talk with the province about having a second emergency room doctor on standby when during the hospital's busiest times. 

Bryan Line says the results of the review leave his family with little satisfaction.

"As far as I'm concerned those improvements should have been made years ago. You know, our hospital and our health region is supposed to be there to help people, not for them to go there and die."