Stoney Point woman says she'd rather die at home than go back to hallway medicine
Mary Gail Beuglet, 82, says she spent more than 6 hours on a stretcher in a hallway
Mary Gail Beuglet, 82, says she never wants to go back to hospital in Windsor, Ont., following her recent experience waiting in a hallway to get into the ER.
"Maybe I'll die but you know at least I'll be comfortable here," said Beuglet at her home in Stoney Point, Ont., Friday.
Beuglet suffered a near-fatal heart attack in January and was fitted with a pacemaker, so when she collapsed and became unresponsive Wednesday her husband called for an ambulance.
"The drivers told me don't come to the hospital because you won't be able to be with her anyways," said Roger Beuglet.
Mary Gail arrived at the Ouellette Campus of Windsor Regional Hospital at around 4:30 p.m. but says she languished in a hallway on a stretcher until midnight when she was seen in the emergency room.
She was monitored all the time, and it turned out she didn't have a heart attack but she says she was cold and uncomfortable the whole time.
"In the hospital, it's not comfortable. You're freezing all the time. There's no heat," said Beuglet.
Roger said he didn't go to the hospital until the following morning, when she was discharged after spending the night in the ER. He wishes he could have been there to keep her company and comfortable.
Paramedics had to stay with her the whole time she was in the hallway, so he questions how many other calls they could have gone on if she would have been seen sooner.
"Because how is the ambulance going to pick up any patients that need help and care and they're in the waiting room with her waiting to be entered in the emergency area," said Roger.
Their daughter, Rosalind Tellier, wants to see the health-care system better funded.
"My daughter's a nurse. She's works overtime. She has too many patients. Everybody has too many patients. They can't keep up. So no wonder we've lost so many nurses," said Tellier, who feels the situation will just worsen with aging Baby Boomers.
To add to the frustration, Beuglet said no one was able to diagnose what caused her episode Wednesday.
The hospital declined to comment on this story.
A spokesperson for Essex County said Essex-Windsor EMS chief Bruce Krauter was not available for comment but told CBC News the offloading problem hasn't gone away.
Premier Doug Ford and Sylvia Jones, deputy premier and minister of health, recently met with Krauter as well as Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy, PC MPPs Andrew Dowie and Anthony Leardi, Essex Warden Hilda MacDonald and the CEOs of Windsor Regional Hospital and Erie Shores Healthcare.
The meeting comes after calls from Bondy and other local politicians for the province to address the number of ambulance code blacks — times when there are no ambulances available — and code reds, when there are two or fewer ambulances available.
Dowie and Leardi, in a joint statement after the meeting, pointed to nearly $1 million spent on a dedicated nurse offload program and the expanded 911 "models of care" which allow paramedics to provide more treatment in the community.
Dowie added the nurse offload program now has seven people working under it, and it was expanded last year to also allow physician's assistants, paramedics and respiratory therapists to assist with offload.
He says training and incentive programs are also being rolled out to attract and keep more health-care professionals, especially to staff after hours clinics to take the burden off emergency rooms. He says they can't offer longer hours with the current staffing levels.
"If you can wait for the urgent care clinic, please do and that will help the emergency rooms," said Dowie. "We need to give options that are alternatives to the emergency room."
Complicating matters says Dowie is that trips to emergency rooms in the Windsor area by ambulance are higher than the provincial average — 35 per cent compared to the average of 20 per cent. He says it will still take months to get more health care professionals trained and certified so the problem isn't going away anytime soon.
He says the new acute care hospital will be a key "game-changer" to alleviate ER wait times.
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