A woman says she spent seven hours in a Calgary emergency room, consulting artificial intelligence for answers as she dealt with a potentially life-threatening condition related to her diabetes.
Another woman says she had to undergo an emergency hysterectomy last year after spending hours losing blood in an emergency room, two weeks after giving birth by C-section.
Stories like these are “the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Paul Parks, an emergency room physician and president-elect of the Alberta Medical Association’s emergency medicine section.
They come amid renewed scrutiny about the state of emergency wait times in the province after a 44-year-old man died in December in the emergency room of Edmonton’s Grey Nuns Community Hospital. Prashant Sreekumar’s family said he had waited nearly eight hours to see a doctor for chest pain. The province has ordered a fatality inquiry into his death.
Recently, emergency room doctors sent a list to the provincial government and to health authorities detailing six deaths and more than two dozen cases where they allege ER delays potentially worsened patients’ conditions or contributed to their deaths.
Whether it’s a family doctor or the emergency room, accessing Alberta’s healthcare system has become an issue for many. As CBC’s Jo Horwood reports, amid stories of permanent harm and death in Alberta ERs, a non-partisan group is travelling the province to ask Albertans if the system works for them, and whether it’s time to demand change.
Parks said there were early indications this was likely going to be a tough flu season, and the problems started long before that.
“Our hospitals have been at 110 per cent capacity. We’ve been struggling. We’ve been begging for help for over a year.”
Diabetic emergency
On Jan. 8, Ashleigh Ronald, who has Type 1 diabetes, was taken to Rockyview General Hospital by ambulance. She had experienced an insulin pump failure that morning, and her blood sugar was rising.
She told CBC Radio’s Calgary Eyeopener she arrived that day around 1 p.m., where initial lab tests were taken.
But she said it would be hours before more comprehensive tests were done, and during that wait she was feeling nauseated and her pain was increasing.
“I’ve just never experienced anything like that in my life. I’ve given birth twice. It was the most incredible pain, and it was completely preventable,” she said.
Looking for answers, she turned to ChatGPT. The AI chatbot told her she likely had diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), which can be life-threatening, and that she should be on an IV.
She says she was put on an IV around 7 p.m., after advocating to nurses that she needed it.
About an hour after that, she says more tests were done confirming she was suffering moderate to severe DKA.
Calgary Eyeopener11:01The status of Calgary emergency rooms
We have more on the situation in Calgary emergency rooms. One Calgarian tells us about her hours-long wait at Rockyview.
Ronald says the doctors and nurses who helped her were professional, and she does not blame them for her experience.
“It just seems so apparent that the system was broken,” she said.
“It definitely has eroded my trust in our public health care being able to take care of truly life-threatening emergencies for adults.”
Emergency hysterectomy
Kelly Raffin says only now does she feel able to share her experience, months after processing the trauma of it all.
The mother of three says she suffered a postpartum hemorrhage last July, 15 days after the birth of her son by C-section. Raffin, who has a background in health care, says she knew what was happening immediately.
When paramedics arrived, she says she did not feel a sense of urgency from them, and says they questioned whether to turn on the ambulance sirens for the ride to Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary.
“That was the first little instinct that I had that I might be in a little bit of trouble,” Raffin said.
She says she waited several hours to be seen by a physician, during which time she could feel a puddle of blood extending up her back and down her legs while she was strapped to the ambulance stretcher.
She says she thought she was going to die.
While waiting, she was texting a friend who works in obstetrics, who in turn alerted an ob/gyn doctor to her situation. That doctor came to check on her. She whispered to him “please don’t let me die,” and says from there, things kicked into high gear.
She was taken to a trauma bay and ultimately underwent a life-saving hysterectomy after losing what she says was an estimated 60 per cent of her blood volume.
She says if the doctor had not come to her aid, she does not think she would have survived.
“That haunts me a little bit,” she said. “Nobody should have to know someone that will help you when you’re in medical crisis.”
Parks said stories like Raffin’s break his heart, and they can be distressing for the doctors and nurses involved.
“There’s moral injury to show up every day and know we could do better for patients like that,” said Parks.
He said health-care workers in the province provide top quality service; the issue is patients not getting that service in a timely manner.
Raffin has nothing but praise for the doctors and nurses who helped her. But she says her experience highlights flaws in the system.
“I’m a born-and-raised Calgarian, a born-and-raised Albertan, and we deserve to be safe in our health-care system. And our health-care system deserves support so that they can help us,” Raffin said.
What the province is doing
In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones said he was unable to comment on any specific cases due to patient confidentiality, but that the government is “very sorry to hear of any Albertan who experiences a serious medical event.”
“Long emergency department wait times remain a serious concern and we are seeing higher emergency department demand due to respiratory viruses,” Kyle Warner said.
“The pressure Alberta’s hospitals are facing are similar to those faced in other provinces.”
long emergency department wait times remain a serious concern. (Zazak Bouarab/Radio-Canada)
The minister’s statement pointed to 336 temporary beds the province has added to help fill the need during flu season, with 206 of those funded year-round, and 130 operating from October.
The province will also be launching the triage liaison physician program starting Feb. 1 in five emergency departments: two in Edmonton and three in Calgary.
The pilot program will see existing Alberta Health Services physicians assist triage nurses to begin diagnosing and caring for patients in waiting rooms.
Speaking on her radio show Your Province, Your Premier on Saturday, Premier Danielle Smith said while there is more work to be done, efforts to move long-term patients from hospitals to other facilities is helping to free up beds.
“We’re beginning to see that those emergency room treatment beds are freeing up. There’s no longer as many patients that are blocking them,” Smith said.
Smith also said the fact a fatality inquiry was ordered into Sreekumar’s death is an indication “there’s something that didn’t go quite right here.”
“I don’t want to pre-judge what the outcome of that is going to be, but [the minister’s] initial look at it said it needed a deeper dive,” Smith said. “And it’s just such a tragedy for that family.”
