CTV.ca | Man who died waiting 34 hours in ER identified
Man who died waiting 34 hours in ER identifiedUpdated Tue. Sep. 23 2008 11:29 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A man who died while waiting 34 hours for care in a Winnipeg emergency room has been identified.
Brian Sinclair, 45, died at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre WHSC in what some are calling the worst emergency room failure in Manitoba’s history.
Waiting Room deaths are going to go up. I hope I’m not one of them.
In defense of Canada’s health care, I just want to say there’s more to the story than just the small amount GruntDoc posted, since this story has been all over the place in the news around here. Apparently Mr. Sinclair was dropped off by a cab from a community health clinic and just sat down in the waiting room and never registered with triage as a patient, which is why he was never seen by a doctor. Still, how no one noticed him sitting there for so long until a patient finally noticed he wasn’t breathing is pretty shameful to say the least.
The “failure” of the emergency room was not the extremely long wait, but that no one saw him and noticed he hadn’t registered as a patient. Given the stresses of being a nurse in an ER (especially in a hospital in downtown Winnipeg, an area known for it’s exquisite selection of crackhouses), I don’t think all the fault lies with the ER on this one.
CMS is right — there was more to the story than meets the eye. The same week a guy died in the waiting room at Parkland after a prolonged wait in a classic tale of the ER busy being too busy. The data is pretty strong though that lack of primary care docs is going to make the ER situation much worse in the next 5 years. This is not an issue of poor ER management but a lack of primary care.