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A Winnipeg family is voicing frustrations after they say their terminally-ill mother and grandmother was left on a stretcher in the hallway at the Health Sciences Centre emergency department for 20 hours.
Theresa Chanowski says her mother, Colleen Titanich, was diagnosed with cancer last year and is now stage four. Her mother lived at home with her, but on Monday she called paramedics after realizing her mother could no longer walk.
“I kept her (at home) as long as I could but I realized that she couldn’t walk and I knew I had to make that call, and that’s a hard call to make,” Chanowski told Global News.
“You’re knowing that you’re going to make that call, and they’re not coming home.”
But Chanowski says a stressful situation only became worse when her mother arrived at the emergency department at HSC. She says the ER was crowded, loud, and filled with disruptive patients, police, and security.
She says her mother was in pain and confused.
“I’m like, that’s my mother, you are not going to make her some number, and let her be in pain, hallucinating,” she said through tears.
“I mean (the cancer) went from her lungs to her brain to her spine to her blood to her bones…. And that is how you treat my mother?”
Chanowski says her mother was listed as low-priority and waited for hours.
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“By the time they actually got her the bed she had been in the hallway for 20 hours. 20 hours. A lady who is 70 years old, full of cancer,” she said.
“And here these people are walking in with cough due to a cold or with addictions issues or withdrawals and right away, oh, top priority there.”
Chanowski says there appeared to be numerous patients in the emergency with addictions issues or going through withdrawal. She says she feels there should be a better triage process or different urgent care facility solely dedicated to patients with withdrawal symptoms or addictions issues.
She also says her mother got a bed and was transferred to palliative care after she contacted the health minister’s office.
“It shouldn’t have had to take me to get that angry, and start making phone calls and saying there is something wrong here,” Chanowski said.
Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson says scenarios like these prompt more patients who leave emergency departments without being seen by a doctor, which exacerbates the issue.
“I think that is absolutely horrifying,” Jackson said.
“What we’re seeing is when people are coming back to the emergency department, they’re coming back much more sick and needing much more care.”
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says fixing the wait times is something that will take time.
“We would love for these challenges to be fixed much more quickly. We would all love to see those wait times addressed much faster,” Asagwara said.
“But the reality of it is, we did not get to a place where those wait times were high overnight and we’re not going to get out of it quickly either.”
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