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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday November 29, 2008 - 3 Emergency Room visit was a night to forget Wayne DeCou checked himself out of a $200 semi-private room rather than spend another night at the hospital By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF An Oakville couple swears they will never set foot in Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH) again after experiencing what they described as shameful conditions during a recent stay. Wayne and Cathy DeCou began their ordeal on Thursday, Nov. 13 when Wayne was admitted to the hospital suffering from swelling and pain in his leg. "At the time, I was basically in lots of pain from my leg, from my feet. It kind of felt like paper cuts everywhere. There were no lesions or anything, but it just hurt to touch," said Wayne. "We went through Emergency quite easily, I was admitted within 30 minutes or so. I was put on blood thinners right away because the worry was that if it was a blood clot, it could lead to a heart attack." Following blood work, a chest x-ray, an electrocardiogram (EKG) and other tests, Wayne said the doctor decided to hold him for observation with the intention of running further tests in the morning. LIESA KORTMANN / OAKVILLE BEAVER GLAD TO BE HOME: Wayne DeCou is recovering from an illness at home with the help of his wife, Cathy DeCou, after checking out of Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital before his treatment was done. According to Wayne, his stay was so horrible at the hospital, he checked himself out. Unfortunately, no beds were available. Wayne said he spent the next 25 hours on a cot in the ER. Wayne said he was hooked up to numerous intravenous tubes, requiring him to lie on his back with his arms dangling over the side because the cot was too small. The halls, he noted, were lined with people in similar situations. Since only a curtain separated Wayne from the rest of the ER, sleep proved impossible. "EMS people are smashing back and forth, people are screaming and yelling. There was a drunk case beside me, another patient near me was a 70-year-old man with a swollen leg, who was howling," said Wayne. "This went on all night." With little else to do, Wayne scrutinized the room around him. What he saw was disturbing. Wayne said he noticed water stains on the ceiling, bodily fluid stains on the floor and balls of dust, which would dislodge from a vent on the ceiling, blow through the air and land on other patients. He found it odd that no one changed his sheet the whole time he was there, even after a needle caused him to bleed all over it. "I'm telling Cathy (the next day) that I'm stinking from basically being stuck there for 25 hours," said Wayne. "After that I needed to either get out of there or get a bed. I needed to sleep." Further testing that morning determined Wayne had cellulitis, a kind of infection that occurs under the skin. Left untreated, the disease could escalate to necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as flesh-eating disease. A doctor placed Wayne on a regiment of antibiotics, but said he would need to stay another night so the doctor could check on his progress. See Patient page 5 Hospital admits beds scarce at aging, overcrowded facility By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Wayne DeCou wasn't the only patient in the Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH) Emergency department waiting for an acute care bed to become available on Friday, Nov. 14. There were 21 other patients in the same boat. "Unfortunately this is more and more becoming the norm," said Halton Healthcare spokesperson Trish Carlton, on the overcrowding issue. "People are ending up waiting in Emergency for a bed because there is no acute care bed available for them within the hospital. During the summertime, we had a real issue with the number of admitted patients in Emergency." While hospital officials will not comment on DeCou's specific case, they did respond to the conditions he described and on some of the actions being taken by the hospital. Halton Healthcare Ombudsman Madonna Benoit said the current problem of overcrowding in the Emergency department may cause patients who are admitted, to remain in the ER for 24 hours or more before being moved to a bed in the Acute Care Unit. Oakville's new hospital, planned for the corner of Dundas Street and Third Line, will bring some relief to this issue replacing the existing hospital's 333 acute care beds with 608. However, this solution is years away and as such OTMH is trying to make due with what it has. "We are starting to review the area of privacy within the Emergency department," said Benoit. "That is a challenge knowing the number of patients and the way the Emergency department is set up. I have asked our privacy officer to have a look at how we could do things differently there. While we know within our new hospital we will be able to do things differently, this is something we need to address for sure." Benoit also discussed the measures being taken to keep the hospital clean. "When we did look at our Emergency department, the area was clean, but because of our building and what it looks like, it doesn't get sparkling by any stretch when you do a cleaning," said Benoit. "We did find there were some areas of high dusting that we needed to do, or should have done, and that is in the works now." Benoit noted that cleaning is done on a daily basis with floors mopped, bathrooms cleaned and even walls scrubbed when necessary. The bedside rails and nearby tables are also cleaned daily, with all of this cleaning done more than once a day should the need arise, said Benoit. The lounge, which Wayne described, is also on the verge of being fixed up. "We've had a chance to look at that and review that area, and the manager mentioned that we have some donor money that will be used to repair that area and make it much more pleasant for patients and their families," said Benoit.