St. Boniface Street Links pushes for more hospital-designated beds at shelters after man's death in ER

The death of a man waiting for care in a Winnipeg ER has an outreach organization calling for the expansion of a program that connects unhoused patients with designated shelter beds. 

Chad Christopher Giffin, 49, died at the Health Sciences Centre, Manitoba's largest hospital, last week after waiting about eight hours to be seen. 

Health officials have told the family that Giffin was well known by emergency room staff at HSC and had been picked up by an ambulance at Main Street and Henry Avenue, near the Salvation Army Centre of Hope. Someone had called 911 because he was outside and looked cold.

In the wake of Giffin's death, his sister, Ronalee Reynolds, previously told CBC she would like to see more places in the city be available around the clock for people without a fixed address. 

Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, agrees and says a program operating out of her outreach organization could be a part of the solution. 

Street Links has 20 beds designated exclusively for hospital patients who have been discharged but don't have a place to go, or for people going to an ER seeking shelter from the cold. 

The program doesn't have a name yet, but it has been running since April on provincial funding that is only available until March. 

Willis said those beds are always full, and while the outreach organization doesn't provide medical services at the St. Boniface building, most people who left an ER to come into the 20 beds needed nothing more than a warm space.

With some emergency departments in Winnipeg over capacity, Willis said there is a role that community organizations can play to relieve some of the pressure on the healthcare system — and it can start with expanding the 20-bed program to other Winnipeg outreach organizations.

"We need a few more of those. For every person we're taking out of a chair in an emergency room, that's reducing some of the congestion," she said.

"[It] creates a whole chain … [another] person who's sitting in the waiting room can now be seen by the emergency doctor." 

However, she said these kinds of programs need to be decentralized from the downtown area. 

During the time Street Links has been taking in people from the ER, it has seen a growing number coming from hospitals well outside the downtown, including Seven Oaks in the city's northwest and Victoria General in the south, Willis said. 

'Hospitals can't be shelters'

Some hospitals outside of Winnipeg have also seen a growth in the number of people experiencing homelessness who go to emergency rooms.

Hospitals in Toronto have seen the number of unhoused people being triaged as a non-urgent jump by 70 per cent in recent years. The data stems from a research co-conducted by Dr. Stephen Hwang, who told CBC News that while they couldn't ask people why they were at the emergency department, those experiencing homelessness and assessed as non-urgent likely came in because of the cold. 

"It certainly does have an impact on the waiting room because it is packed with people, and some of them are just seeking shelter," he said. 

To Dr. Sahil Gupta, who works at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital E.R., the ripple effect goes beyond overcrowded emergency departments where response time slows down. The most basic needs of people experiencing homelessness — housing, food safety and clothing — can't be met once they are discharged from the ER, he said.

"[It] leads to this revolving door where we kind of do the Band-Aid solutions and then we see the same individuals over and over again," Gupta said.

"We need … to make sure that once we discharge somebody, there's a shelter to go to or a caseworker they can connect with." 

LISTEN | How a Toronto hospital supports people seeking shelter from the cold in their ER:

Up To Speed10:34How a Toronto hospital supports people seeking shelter from the cold in their ER

The Emergency Department at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto sees more than 4,000 visits annually from people experiencing homelessness. So they created a program to connect people with housing, employment, and social supports. Dr. Sahil Gupta, an emergency physician at St. Michael's, tells guest host Chloe Friesen about the program and whether the model could address a similar problem here in Winnipeg.

Shared Health, which oversees the delivery of health care in Manitoba, told CBC News that HSC has a social work team staffed with provincial funding, helping people without medical needs to access shelter resources in the community and ensuring a safe discharge plan is in place before they leave the hospital. 

Meanwhile, the emergency department at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital, has been running its own outreach program since 2021, connecting homeless people with social agencies for permanent support.

A caseworker then maintains contact with the patient in case more help is needed. 

More than 300 patients have been under the care of the program since it started, and Gupta said 20 people have been permanently housed. 

"Hospitals can't be shelters," he said. "But … what hospitals need to start doing, and can do, is connect those individuals with the support.

"Otherwise, the system just falls apart, and everything backs up into a place like the emergency department."