Selinger pushes for patient advocate following woman’s hospital death

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This article was published 06/04/2016 (3714 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — NDP Leader Greg Selinger is demanding the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority release results of a review into the death of a Winnipeg woman — who spent two hours on the waiting room floor of the Seven Oaks hospital without treatment — be presented to the family “as soon as possible.”

“I believe the WRHA should get it done,” Selinger said on Tuesday. “The WRHA runs on its own board of directors, but just the very fact I’m saying this sends a message to the WRHA they need to get on with this.”

In addition, Selinger, in the midst of a provincial election campaign, announced the NDP would establish an independent patient advocate to assist families through the critical incident review process.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported on Monday that Mohinder Singh, 57, was rushed to Seven Oaks General Hospital Oct. 14, 2015, after collapsing in her home on Calvert Close, suffering from a severe headache.

She was checked out by paramedics, but upon arrival was told to wait for a CT scan, which the family was told was not available.

Singh remained in the waiting room, lying on the floor because she found sitting upright in a wheelchair too painful. She lost consciousness two hours later and was transported to the Health Sciences Centre. A CT scan was performed revealing Singh had suffered a brain aneurysm. She was pronounced dead the next day.

Singh’s husband, Darshan, said he repeatedly pleaded with Seven Oaks staff to at least offer his wife a bed, but was told there were none available.

“She wasn’t even offered an aspirin,” he said.

The family reached out to the media only after a subsequent critical incident review — which they had originally been told would take two months — had stretched into four months, with no answers.

A request to the WRHA for information on the case proved fruitless. The authority wouldn’t confirm whether Singh was a patient at Seven Oaks or if a review was being conducted.

On Monday, Singh’s son, Braham, said the family questioned whether his mother might still be alive if she had received treatment, and was critical of the lack of resources offered as she was dying.

“She didn’t have to pass away,” he said. “They could have done something. For my mom to be treated like a doormat … she just laid on the ground. You live your life with dignity and honour, and then the last moments are on the floor of a waiting room. She deserved better.”

Selinger, meanwhile, said a patient advocate would be a “powerful voice” for patients and their families.

“Manitobans need to know when something goes wrong we’re on their side as a government and, more importantly, they have somebody to work through the system with them,” Selinger said. “Now it’s clear people need somebody to help ensure that critical incident process gets them the information they need in a reasonable time frame.”

Selinger also spoke with Darshan Tuesday to offer his condolences and assistance. “I just thought it was really hard on them not having the ability to get more information on what happened, that sense of closure about it,” he said. “I felt we should do something.”

A representative of the WRHA also contacted the family to set up a meeting “to improve communication” this week. The family was told the results of the review into Singh’s death “should” be available by the end of the month.

One family member welcomed the promise of an advocate to assist families — only wishing it wouldn’t take going public about their death, grief and self-doubt to make it happen.

“No, it’s not good enough, but it’s a start,” son Braham added. “At least someone is taking us seriously now. But if we hadn’t gone to the media who knows how long they would have played the waiting game with us?”

Braham said his father remains plagued by self-doubt. For example, when paramedics asked his wife how her pain felt on a scale of 1-10 she replied, “Six.”

“But that’s the wrong question,” Darshan said. “How would she know (how to rank her pain)?”

Worse, Braham said his father blames himself for “not making a bigger scene” in the waiting room to get staff to look at his wife.

But, the son added, “Is it whoever screams the loudest or kicks the most doors who gets the most attention? Is that how the system should work?”

» Winnipeg Free Press