After waiting more than 8 hours in St. John’s emergency room, his heart stopped, now he’s asking for a change
After a wait of more than eight hours at one emergency department in St. John’s, and a wild trip across town to another, Paul Reed watched his heart monitor go crazy before he fainted.
The next thing he remembers is looking up and seeing a large man towering over him.
“Who is he there? What is he doing there? He’s back there again. What is he doing there?” Reed said.
“I stood straight up. The nurse, luckily, was a six-foot man and he was over me and giving me CPR. I came over a few times and I could see him and I knew I wasn’t looking at God.”
Reed explains what happened to him at St. Clair Mercy Hospital on June 14, 2023. He is grateful to the nurse who was part of the team that revived him. He has undergone heart surgery and has recovered. But, he said, the events that led to his distress were unacceptable.
He said, “I waited eight and a half hours in the ER. I left the Health Sciences Center and went to St. Clair. I survived, but I had some trouble coping with the situation. It took me about a year to recover from that.”
A St. John’s emergency doctor is speaking out after hearing him tell CBC News that someone would die in the ER if the hospital’s overcrowding problem isn’t addressed quickly.
“I heard that and I thought, ‘Wait, it’s done.’ It happened to me,” he said.
Reid, who worked as a quality engineer in the offshore oil and gas industry for three decades, drew on his experience using the health authority’s complaints and appreciation process.
He said, “I wanted to use my experience to help improve the health care system. I really didn’t think the process was as important as I thought it was. I felt like they just wanted me to go away.”
‘I’m in trouble’
Reed’s story began decades ago. He said his father’s family was “plagued” with heart disease, and his mother and siblings died young. Reed also suffered a heart attack in 2007.
So in June 2023, when he experienced pain that spread up his arm, he worried something was seriously wrong.
He said, “I had been suffering from indigestion pains for many years, and I was convinced they were angina attacks and I paid them no attention.”
“But this one morning I had several. I knew something was going to happen and we were shopping and the pain increased…in my neck, out of my shoulders, down my arms and I said to the wife ‘We have to go to the hospital. We have to go now. I’m in trouble.'”
Inside the emergency room at the Health Sciences Center, Reed was given a blood test to look for signs of a heart attack.
I felt really lonely, helpless, that I was alone and if anything happened to me, no one would do anything for me.– Paul Reed
He said he waited for more than an hour and then asked the hospital staff if his results were back. Reed said he was told that they had forgotten to do his blood test, and that they would do it immediately and told him to wait.
Reed said more than eight hours later he contacted the ER window. He said when no one responded, he opened the door of a room where hospital staff were working.
He said he was scolded for opening the door and told there was nothing they could do for him because there were no monitored beds. They were asked to return to the waiting room.
He said he was also given his blood test results which confirmed he had “suffered a heart attack.”
“I said, ‘Looks like you’re really not going to do anything for me here’ and I took off my armband and put it on the table. I said, ‘I’m leaving it and going home.’ I started walking outside. My wife followed me. He said ‘There’s no way you can get home. I’m taking it to St. Clair.”
a wild drive
Reed said they drove through the city running red lights in an attempt to reach St. Clair before the situation worsened.
When they arrived at the emergency department, Reed was again told to wait. After some time, he said, he appealed to the hospital staff to help him.
“I expressed my concern, perhaps with some exaggeration, and (a nurse) immediately helped me,” Reed said, adding that he was offered an aspirin to chew.
“She gave me three blasts of nitroglycerin and said ‘I’m taking you to an monitored bed inside the ER.’ I stayed there for about twenty minutes, and I remember the lights flashing, bells ringing and heart beats suddenly increasing and I left.”
Reed says his heart stopped, briefly causing him to die, but he was revived. When he returned home a long period of recovery followed.
He said, “I spent four months on the sofa. It was a long time to think. I felt really alone, helpless, that I was alone and if something happened to me, no one would do anything for me.”
formal complaint
Ultimately, Reed filed a formal complaint, not because he was angry, he said, or that he wanted to blame, but to help find ways to improve care.
He said he received responses from the province’s health authority, but about a recent CBC News report Death in the emergency department of Carbonear And A physician’s call for change Leaving them to question whether real reforms were ever made.
A St. John’s man who suffered a heart attack after waiting more than eight hours in two emergency rooms is calling for changes to improve care and reduce wait times. CBC’s Mark Quinn reports.
“What’s the problem with long wait times in the ER, 20 or 30 years?” Reed said.
“Think about it. People have spent their entire careers in a system of excessive wait times and nothing has changed. I mean, as a quality practitioner, it’s astonishing to me that something could go…so systematically wrong and nothing happened.”
CBC News asked Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services to respond to Reid’s concerns. The health authority acknowledged the request via an email, but did not release anything thereafter.
Reid also received an email from a health authority official on February 10. CBC News reviewed that email.
“I understand that your health care experience was thoroughly reviewed through the Office of Patient Relations,” the email read, from an official whose name and title were redacted by Reed.
The email listed several corrective actions:
- Sorry for the experience of care in the ER,
- A root cause analysis that identified three problems and worked toward solutions,
- Education was completed with all staff regarding the use of the chest pain risk assessment tool and chest pain medical direction,
- Adoption of a new chest pain risk assessment tool,
- Chart audit to ensure compliance on presentation of patients for triage,
- and discussions with staff to improve patient-centered communication.
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