Alberta emergency doctors have compiled a list of 6 potentially preventable ER deaths
Alberta emergency room doctors have counted six potentially preventable deaths and several close calls from patients who waited too long for care in emergency rooms across the province.
Dr. Paul Parks, a Medicine Hat ER physician and former president of the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), says he and his emergency medicine colleagues compiled a list of cases that occurred over a two-week period in late December and early January.
CBC News obtained the document listing the cases from multiple sources. Parks confirmed it was authentic and said he sent it to the provincial government and health officials on January 11 to get more support for the strained system. Parks did not provide the document to CBC News.
It’s “horrible” to watch patients suffer while health care workers don’t have enough staff or hospital space to help them, Parks said in an interview Monday.
“I’ve been here 25 years and have never seen it this bad,” he said. He said he believed the cases his colleagues counted were “the tip of the iceberg.”
Parks said emergency doctors across the province have begun collecting examples of cases where they believe delays in care have resulted in harm to patients. A 44-year-old man died in the emergency room Last month at the Gray Nuns Community Hospital in Edmonton. Prashant Sreekumar’s family says he waited for nearly eight hours to see a doctor about his chest pain. The provincial government has ordered a fatality inquest to investigate the death.
Although Sreekumar’s family has been vocal about their experience, Parks said similar scenarios are playing out in emergency departments across the province without public attention.
Dr. Scott McLean, an emergency physician who works at Royal Alexandra Hospital and Northeast Community Health Center in Edmonton, said he believes the list underestimates patients who are in worse shape because of ER wait times.
A spokesperson for Acute Care Alberta said they would not comment on any cases compiled by doctors due to patient privacy concerns.
‘It is still uncertain whether he will survive or not,’ the doctor writes.
Parks said no date or location for each incident was given in the document sent to provincial officials to protect patient privacy.
The six deaths recorded by doctors included a middle-aged man suffering from chest pain, who they allege spent eight hours in the emergency waiting room before a bed became available. They say the patient was agitated, his heart stopped and staff could not save him.
“This case should be of great concern, as it is very similar to the very recent case of death that occurred at (Grey Nuns Emergency Department),” the document said.
Doctors allege that another man in his 50s died of multi-organ failure due to a bacterial blood infection. He said he waited without being seen for at least seven hours in an urban ER and then left. They say a few hours later, EMS brought him in in critical condition.
The list, compiled by an Alberta doctor, alleges there were six deaths and dozens of so-called deaths in the province’s emergency rooms in late December. The list was included in a letter sent to ministers and health care agencies to help tackle overcrowding.
A female patient, who doctors say waited too long for emergency surgery for intestinal blockage and perforation, died of organ failure 24 hours later. He also alleged that people who showed up more seriously ill in the ER delayed getting a doctor to him.
The patient doctors say was identified when Park sent the document to the provincial government was a 50-year-old woman whose aorta, which is the artery that carries oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body, had ruptured. Doctors said he had a history of similar problems. Doctors allege that he had to wait for eight and a half hours to be seen and that all his assessment was done in the waiting room before he was taken for surgery.
They allege that a man suffering from a ruptured spleen waited for more than four hours to receive attention. They allege that a 20-year-old man suffering from influenza, pneumonia and after waiting seven hours, crashed and died in the intensive care unit with organ failure.
“It is still uncertain whether he will survive ICU care,” he said.
They allege that a woman suffering from stroke waited confused in a wheelchair for four hours. They allege that a 70-year-old man suffered a serious heart attack as there was no bed available in the waiting room for two hours.
“Delay is likely to cause long-term heart damage, leading to death in (the waiting room),” the doctors say.
The list of at least 27 cases highlights patient suffering, uncontrolled pain and no confidentiality when delivering bad news to patients and families. Doctors allege that some patients who were in medical distress were revived in the hallway.
The document says patients often wait for days in the emergency room to be admitted to a hospital ward and that emergency doctors do not always have the training or expertise to manage their conditions.
McLean said he hopes telling the stories of individual patients will draw more attention than pointing out long waits.
He said doctors sometimes can’t see patients who need attention for five or more hours within 15 to 20 minutes.
A lack of hospital space and staff is to blame, McLean said.
“We haven’t built a new hospital in Edmonton since 1988,” he said. “The population has doubled. So where are those patients going? They’re coming to my emergency department and they’re sitting there waiting to see me. “
In waiting rooms, he said, patients and their families are becoming more assertive in seeking care — and sometimes even aggressive toward staff.
Kyle Warner, press secretary to Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones, said in a statement on Monday that reviewing cases with unexpected negative results is a routine process for the health care system.
Although Warner would not comment on anonymous patient reports, he said, “We take all information regarding patient outcomes seriously.”
Warner said Jones plans to meet with people from the AMA and Acute Care Alberta to relieve the pressure and hear their views.
“He wants to ensure a shared understanding that the system is under extraordinary pressure, responding as it has in past years, and requires additional resources beyond flu season,” Warner’s statement said. “The government is working on long-term solutions for capacity expansion.”
Acute Care Alberta spokesperson Jennifer Vanderlaan wrote in a statement Monday that patients arrive at hospitals in serious or critical condition, and “sadly, deaths are not uncommon in the health system.”
He said there are mechanisms in place for doctors and staff to raise concerns about the care patients receive.
“It is wrong to suggest that all deaths are due to system failure,” VanderLaan’s statement said.
He said Acute Care Alberta is coordinating a system-wide approach to weather the respiratory virus across all health-care providers.
Doctors look for specific solutions
The provincial government and Acute Care Alberta have said they have taken steps to add surge beds to the system.
The AMA is calling for one leader to take charge of the entire health care system, a demand Park reiterated Monday.
The AMA says some health care services that accept patients who have been discharged from the hospital do not operate on weekends, contributing to the backlog. It says Alberta also needs a health workforce plan based on the province’s population projections.
Doctor’s description of patients’ suffering comes after 300 Alberta emergency and general medicine physicians Signed in support of an op-ed There have been calls for more consistent hospital discharges, safe patient load ratios and a return to a centrally coordinated health system that has been reorganized into multiple agencies by Alberta’s United Conservative government.
At a press conference Thursday, Jones acknowledged that ERs are under significant strain, but resisted calls to declare a public health emergency.
