Cape Breton mom angry after being forced to drive to Halifax for emergency surgery

Mom angry over lack of emergency eye care A mother is angry over the level of care received when her daughter required emergency eye surgery. Kyle Moore reports.

A Cape Breton mother is expressing her anger over the level of health care she received when her four-year-old daughter got a piece of metal lodged in her eye.

Emma Hawley took her daughter, Lillian, to the Victoria County Memorial Hospital in Baddeck, N.S. on the weekend. She learned Lillian would need emergency eye surgery to remove the piece of metal, but when a call was made to the Cape Breton Regional Hospital, Hawley says they were told an anesthesiologist wasn’t available.

“When they called, the people who were on call for the weekend said that he wasn’t on call. He said that another doctor was on call, so when they called the other doctor, that doctor said no, the first doctor is on call, and neither of them would come in regardless,” explains Hawley, who lives in Sydney Mines, N.S.

Hawley says the doctor in Baddeck tried to arrange for another anesthesiologist in Cape Breton to attend the surgery. When that didn’t work out, Hawley was told she would have to drive five hours to the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.

“It wasn’t a short drive. It was a long drive. And if it was worse, she could have lost her eye, or it could have been a lot worse,” she says.

“It’s ridiculous, really. It’s my four-year-old daughter. She can’t wait. She had to go to the hospital and we had to drive her there.”

A spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Health Authority said Wednesday that emergency eye surgery isn’t usually performed at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital because the cases are rare.

“Patients requiring either emergency surgery or procedures for eye would be referred or transferred to the hospital in Antigonish or New Glasgow or, if necessary, to the QEII or IWK,” explains Greg Boone.

Nova Scotia Health Minister Randy Delorey confirmed that an anesthesiologist was on call at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital that night, but didn’t know much else about the situation.

Alfie MacLeod, the Progressive Conservative MLA for the area, says the situation could have been handled better.

“If it was your little girl, would it be acceptable? Certainly isn’t in my mind. To come all the way to Halifax for a five-minute procedure, that is not acceptable,” says MacLeod.

Boone says anyone with concerns about their experiences can contact a patient-care representative and the health authority will follow up.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore