He was relatively healthy until last month, when he started getting sick. Unable to eat and with severe stomach pains, Beckett waited 26 hours in the emergency department of Dr. Everett Chalmers last weekend in July. She was eventually seen in the ER and examined, then referred to a cancer specialist in Moncton due to a mass found in her uterus and another pushing up into her intestine. She was sent home to wait for the appointment, which was eight days away. After seven days lying in bed in pain, she told her husband, Wayne, “I’m not going to make it to Moncton. You have to call an ambulance.” Doctors came, took her vitals and told her she was stable. They told her husband to run to the pharmacy and get a Fleet enema and then they left. When her husband returned from the pharmacy, Beckett was unresponsive. She called medics again, but they were unable to revive her. Mary Lou Beckett had worked for the same home care employer for more than 50 years and was still working with the elderly two weeks before she died. (Submitted by Ross Beckett) Beckett’s son, Ross Beckett, said he wanted to share his mother’s story because no one should have to suffer so much while waiting for health care. Even if his mother’s death was inevitable, she had been in pain and waiting in limbo for too long. “That’s what the health system is supposed to do,” he said. “Come in, get rid of the pain, or at least give yourself time. “If they had operated and she died on the table, it would have been more acceptable… But that didn’t happen. She was sent home to lay in pain.” Beckett’s long wait at the hospital is nothing new. And even if the first team of paramedics had taken her to the hospital, she might still be waiting on a stretcher. In Moncton, people waited on ambulance stretchers for 24 hours, with paramedics unable to leave to respond to more calls. In Fredericton a man died while waiting for care in the emergency room. Staffing shortages have resulted in the closure of emergency rooms in Sackville and other departments across the province. Beckett said the medical examiner’s report showed his mother died of a ruptured intestine. He said he suffered from diverticulitis, which is when small bumps on the inner wall of the intestines become inflamed or infected, and was on medication for the disease. Beckett said the family does not plan to press charges and is not making specific allegations against the doctor or health care department — because they are not a party that caused the delay. “The system is broken,” he said. “Nobody deserves to wait that long in a waiting room.” He said neither he nor his mother had a family doctor. They had to go back on the waiting list for a doctor after Dr. Adrian Edgar closed his practice, Clinic 554. For government and the health care system, Beckett’s message is: “Don’t apologize. Just work to fix it.” “There are a lot of people who depend on the health care system and they expect better.”
Wait times are the highest in at least four years
Kris McDavid, spokesman for Horizon Health Network, said the average waiting time for “emergency” cases at Chalmers Hospital in 2021-2022 was 2.1 hours. That compares to an average of 1.2 hours last year and 1.8 hours the year before. It was around 1.5 hours in 2018 and 2017. “Emergencies” include abdominal pain and shortness of breath, according to the Horizon website. McDavid said Level 3 is the only one of the five case levels for which Horizon publicly reports average wait times. Margaret Melanson, interim president and CEO of Horizon Health Network, said wait times “can vary widely” depending on severity, number of staff on duty and bed availability. He said staff use the Canadian triage and acuity scale to determine the severity of a person’s illness or injury. This process takes pain into account, but it is not the only driving factor for urgency. Melanson said the network has started a pilot program where patients in the waiting room are attended by a licensed practical nurse, nursing staff or nursing student. The Department of Health said it would not respond to questions from CBC News about this story because it cannot comment on specific patient cases.
Paramedics diverting patients from ER
Derek Casista, president of the New Brunswick Paramedics Association, said a program launched in January gives paramedics the power to assess patients and decide not to take them to hospital. He said the program has seen “thousands” of patients referred to clinics or pharmacies instead of emergency rooms in just the past month. He said this has helped tremendously with unloading delays and emergency room wait times. “It’s being able to decide and have information about where a patient should go in the health care system instead of blindly taking them to an emergency room where we know … the wait times are horrendous,” he said. “It’s completely unacceptable. So we’re doing everything we can.” Paramedics use a special scoring system to assess patients and decide whether their symptoms warrant a trip to the hospital. If a patient has very low scores, paramedics can refuse to take them to hospital even if they insist. Ross Beckett said his mother wanted to go to the emergency room the day she died. Ambulance New Brunswick, Horizon and the Department of Health cannot confirm or deny this due to patient confidentiality. Like any program, Cassista said, this one isn’t perfect and there’s risk associated with everything. He said every decision to refuse to transport people to the hospital is reviewed by Medavie/Ambulance New Brunswick to make sure it was the right one. “There is always room for improvement. There is strict quality assurance that goes on with these types of incidents,” he said. “That being said, taking everyone to the emergency room is not something we can sustain. We don’t have the resources to do it. So there have to be ways to find other ways to get health care for people.” Casista can’t comment on specific cases, but said paramedics err on the side of caution and the grading system has “redundancies” to protect patients. “The key is for trainees to stay within the boundaries of the program and not do things on their own.” Christianna Williston, a spokeswoman for Ambulance New Brunswick, said she could not discuss the specific case, but answered questions about the program in general. He said all paramedics are trained to use the grading system and can connect with a “paramedic clinical trainer” or doctor if they need help assessing whether a patient should go to hospital. If paramedics determine the person needs to go to the hospital, the patient may refuse to go, he said. “This option has always been available to our patients. Paramedics will respect a patient’s decision to refuse treatment or transport and will ask the patient to sign a form.” Ross Beckett said Mary Lou was a kind and loving mother. She worked for one employer for 56 years, was loyal and loved to cook. She said her father lived to be 97 and she hoped he would have her in his life a little longer. “I loved her very much,” he said. “I will miss him, a lot of people will miss him.”
