The Incredible State of Hospital Care in British Columbia

I'm used to hearing stories of people going to hospital for a minor problem and dying because of infections caught in the hospital or because of medical malpractice. But this story is just incredible...



You have a medical emergency in a hospital staff looks at you like you are from the moon and calls 911 emergency to bring in paramedics to do what??? To rush you to a hospital for emergency medical care!!!

What kind of mindless staff do BC hospitals have that can't look around and find staff to assist? Nurses and doctors stood around while it took 9 minutes for paramedics to drive to the hospital to "pick up the man" and then take him to... they picked him up at the 6th floor of Peace Arch hospital and moved him to the emergency room at the Peace Arch hospital. Yep... the very same hospital!.

This is obviously a task -- moving people with medical conditions -- for which the staff at Peace Arch Hospital is not prepared to do. Obviously their orderlies don't bother moving staff. And nurses find it beneath their dignity to attend to somebody fallen in an elevator and in need of care. The staff on the "sixth floor" know their job is "sixth floor medical care" and leave cases of "emergency care" to the staff in the "emergency care department". Yep... medical care is so specialized at Peace Arch Hospital that if you have a child who has a seizure in the geriatric section they won't do anything. And if you have a grandparent with a heart seizures while visiting the maternity ward they won't do anything. You have to "plan ahead" and have your medical emergency in the "correct" part of the hospital if you expect staff to bother to attend to you!

My heart goes out to Stephen Braybrooke. Not only did he have to deal with the tragedy of his father, James Braybrooke, having a serious medical condition. Stephen had to arm wrestle the medical system and work hard to figure out which buttons to push in this obdurate and unfeeling medical bureaucracy to get assistance for his father. Outrageous!

This hospital, Peace Arch Hospital, has a troubled history.

A few other cases:

• From 2009: "He pointed to a case in White Rock, B.C., in 2004. In that situation, a man brought his 22-year-old niece to the Peace Arch Hospital because she wasn't breathing. He left her in the car and went inside to get help, but claimed staff instead phoned 911. The woman ended up dying and the family blamed the hospital's response time. But The Fraser Health Authority said a nurse went to help and staff reacted appropriately."


• From 2005: "The mother of a young woman who died in Peace Arch Hospital last August wants some answers and more information from health authorities.
  
  Catherine Peace lives in Merritt. Her daughter, Jessica, died of heart failure at Peace Arch Hospital on August 25. The family believes there was a 10-minute delay in treating her after she was taken to the emergency department by her uncle the day before.
  
  At about 3:54 p.m. on Aug. 24, 2004, South Surrey resident Jim Roberts pulled up outside the hospital emergency department with Jessica, 22, in the car. She had stopped breathing during the short drive from his nearby apartment. Roberts ran inside looking for help, setting off a chain of events that has the family disputing the hospital's claim that Jessica was tended to within two minutes of her arrival. Roberts insists it was more like 10 minutes."

There are many more, but these are a couple I found in a few minutes search on the Internet.

This hospital should have its management shaken up. At the very least replace the staff who don't think their duty is to attend to the injured and sick with medical care specialists who take their vocation seriously.