Winnipegger takes to Twitter over poor Seven Oaks ER wait experience
One Winnipeg woman was so disgusted by what she was witnessing in the Seven Oaks emergency room waiting area Wednesday that she took to Twitter to vent her frustrations. It turns out her experience may not have been all that unique.
"I tweeted for my own sanity, but it took on a life of its own," said Lisa Wevinger (@MsBehavior).
Wevinger took her grandmother to the hospital Wednesday on the advice of her doctor, who was worried the 89-year-old may have had a stroke.
Wevinger said while they were waiting, another woman came in and started writhing on the floor in pain. The woman was sobbing, yelling and eventually vomited.
“At first, I was annoyed, but then it was ridiculous — vomiting, screaming for help,” said Wevinger, adding that none of the staff or security did anything to help.
Not alone
Wevinger said when she tweeted out her experience she was stunned with the response.
"It was an amazing outpouring of support and frustration,” she said. “But I really took away from it is that this is not a unique experience. This is not surprising, and that is what was surprising to me that nobody was surprised that this was happening."
To make matters worse, not long after the woman arrived an intoxicated man walked into the emergency room and started to making a scene.
“He started to get disorderly, he was yelling,” said Wevinger.
“The woman was on the floor yelling and crying. My grandmother was getting frustrated. She's yelling, asking if there's nothing you could do for anybody. I mean, like, there's 30 people hovering around. It was like a circus. It was absolutely ridiculous.”
Wevinger said she went to patient advocacy in the hospital to ask if they knew anything about the woman in distress. But she was told by a staff member that they couldn’t share details with non-relatives of the woman.
Wait times off the mark: Wevinger
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) commented Thursday, saying waiting rooms are stressful places and hospital staff do the best they can to see people as quickly as possible.
"It is not uncommon for patients and families waiting in emergency rooms to be uncomfortable, nervous, and worried," stated a WRHA spokesperson.
But Wevinger said the estimated wait times staff were telling incoming emergency room patients were off the mark.
"When we got there people were waiting two hours already and the triage was saying it was an hour to two hours wait time, " said Wevinger.
"It was obviously way off. We waited 4½ hours. People who had been waiting longer than us were still there when we got in.
Wevinger said only four patients were seen in the first 2½ hours and that only two doctors were present.
"I just couldn't believe they would let someone sit there for two hours like that, mildly moaning to yelling. At one point just laying on the ER floor," said Wevinger.
The WRHA said patients are seen based on the severity and urgency of their condition.
"This means that patients who are not acutely ill wait longer than those needing urgent or life-saving care," said the WRHA spokesperson.
"We recognize that waiting in a busy emergency department can be challenging, and we continue to work at improving wait times and ensuring the services we provide are safe and high quality."
Good from the bad
Wevinger hopes that something good comes from the experience.
"My main issues are the misrepresented wait times and the fact that they wouldn't do something about a patient that was uncomfortable, but also making the rest of us uncomfortable," she said.
"No one talks about these things, but once you share, all of a sudden everybody has a similar story. It's important to get them out. I think it's good that it's sparking discussion.
