‘Death zones’: Documents detail deaths, near misses in Alberta hospitals

A document obtained by CTV News says emergency room waits in Alberta hospitals led to at least six deaths. CTV News Edmonton's Nicole Weisberg reports.

Health-care workers are staying persistent in their pleas to the Alberta government in addressing emergency room wait times and hospital capacity after officials spoke to concerns last week.

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“It was extremely disheartening for myself, my colleagues in emergency medicine, internal medicine, to hear that government’s first response last week that our pleas for help and our cries to declare the crisis were misguided,” said Paul Parks, president-elect of Alberta Medical Association’s (AMA) emergency medicine section.

“That was another impetus to try to share with health-care leaders what we’re seeing on a daily basis – the suffering, the near misses and deaths we’re seeing.”

CTV News Edmonton has obtained documents that were sent to the Alberta government, detailing said deaths and near misses emergency rooms have seen over the last few weeks.

A man in his 50s went to the ER in the evening with a fever and sore throat, which he had been experiencing for about a week, and reported intermittent confusion and falls from generalized weakness, said the document.

He waited in the ER for seven to eight hours before leaving. EMS was called to the patient about three or four hours later and he was admitted to the ICU with strep bacteremia.

“Eventually, care was withdrawn due to multiorgan failure,” said the document. “This is a tragic case where the patient would likely still be alive had he been seen more urgently at his first presentation.”

A female patient also waited eight hours over a night shift to be seen by an emergency doctor. She ended up having a bowel obstruction/perforation that required emergent diagnosis, according to the document.

By the time she was seen, she was septic. She was able to get emergency surgery, but died in the ICU about 24 hours later.

“There was already an eight-hour wait when the shift began, and there was never a chance to get to this patient because so many other acute patients kept bumping her from getting the next available care space in the ED (emergency department),” said the document.

The document also described hospital hallways and waiting rooms, which are full of patients, as “death zones,” where one patient had a cardiac arrest and died in the hallway.

“The patient never made it to a care space and showed obvious signs of deterioration where early intervention might have prevented his death,” said the document.

Shortly after this case, another patient had a seizure in the hallway and received care, but in a non-private and non-care space.

“Our hallways and waiting rooms have become death zones, and we wonder how many ‘ticking time bombs’ will drop dead when they should be receiving life-saving care in a functional emergency care space,” said the document.

A retired nurse in her 100s waited in the ER for about eight hours. She shared her observations with the AMA, saying she had never seen the health-care system like this and noted way too few nursing staff to deal with the volume of patients, as well as too little space.

Parks said the examples collected by physicians and health-care workers from across the province were shared with the Alberta government to share the urgency of the current situation in hospitals.

The document was shared internally to the premier and ministers, said Parks.

“We are unable to comment on the unverified, anonymized patient information that has been circulated in the media due to privacy and legal considerations,” said a statement from the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Services. “Although we do take all information related to patient outcomes seriously.”

The statement said minister Matt Jones has reached out to the AMA for a meeting with Acute Care Alberta to “share our plans and discuss solutions they have identified to address acute care pressures.”

“We are also strengthening emergency department safety through new measures like the triage liaison physician program launching on Feb. 1,” said the ministry.

With files from CTV News Calgary