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I refused to éign the paper that Would take him out of our area. Apart from the social worker, not one nurse or doctor We were told this wouldbost $2,041 monthly and he could be taken any- whore,’prol-)ably out_side of York Region I had called about palliative care for my husband; a social worker came to my hu§b_and's bedslde about 1 pm. I saw the urine puddle still on the floor with a paper towel thrown over it. The sheets were bloody and his intravenous was unattached. We talked calmly and I tried to make him comfortable. I was horrified. I should have stayed all night. I believed hospitals checked hourly on _their patientsrif only for consolation. Meanwhile, he was bleeding profusely from the vein in his am. All he could do was wait and try to stop the blood. All this he told me in a quiet voice. At some point, he needed to go to the bathroom and couldn't walk. He had no means of communication. He was getting desperate, having waited for hours. He ‘ tried to get out of bed. The intravenous needle came out of his arm in his struggle and he urinated on the floor. Nine hours later, my husband seemed calmer and said he would sleep. I was to go home and come back in the morning. I was back at 8:30 am. He smiled at me, then told me about his night. An X-ray was taken. Pneumonia was diagnosed and intravenous medication was given. He seemed to be more com- fortable, although restless He had eaten nothing for three days and could keep nothing down, not even water. His system appeared to be shutting down. By lunch, my husband looked very ill, a passing doctor had him put in the suture room, a small room, for which I was so grateful. Paramedics were sitting around for hours, reading novels, keeping an eye on the patient they had brought in. They had to stay with the patient until the hospital stafl took over. I wondered at the wasted hours of these valuable, highly trained paramedics. He had a very bad heart. although totally mentally alert, he was unable to function at all. He was concentrating only on getting another breath. He was so thin, a six-foot, three-inch man who weighed barely 120 lbs. He was in a dire state. For five hours he was on a stretcher in the corridor of emergency surrounded by other patients up and down the hall on both sides. On Dec. 3 at 7'30 am. I was compelled to take my dear 92 year-old husband by ambulance to Markham Stouffville Hos- pital. He couldn't breathe. ’ISN’T THIS AWFUL?’ Unionville’s Ieanne Kerâ€"Homell Clarke describes the tragic final hours ' of her husband’s life in a crowded emergency department My husband’s daughter came to relieve me for an hour at 4 pm. An hour later, my husband was dead. The nurses seemed startled and one came and set up a call button. I told her I was upset no one had come to see him since I came, which is six hours. I recounted what he had told me about his night. I asked why there was no means of communication for him. There was a poor woman out in the hall who was constantly calling loudly for her mother with every breath. Another woman was crying out in pain at inter- vals. I could hear someone else retching. At 2:30 p.m., I went to the nurses’ sta- tion, I waited, finally asking for the status of my husband’s health. The nurse con- fen'ed with one or two others, then told me they couldn't find his file. We spent the day together, my hus- band altemately dozing and moving rest- lessly, and we talked. He was very aware of the situation. At one point, I went and found the necessary equipment for him to urinate and he was too weak to attend to himself, I discovered. > Do you want to share an experience, good or bad, with the health care system? My stepdaughter had stepped out for SHARE YOUR STORY We are told there Inail be an extension for the emergency department built by 201‘3: 'Ijhatjs silgyears away. My husband’é last words to me were: “...Isn’t this awful Yes, it certainly is. Why are we allowing developers to build houses in an already overcrowded hospiral simply cannot handle it I am sad that a gallant group of nurses and doctors are unable to attend to their patients as they should. They are so over- run with sick people, with no beds, no space and, as they are severely under- staffed, they are simply unable to cope. It is a complete burnout situation for them and literally hell for the patients and their It is clear, the entire médical system is brefiking dqun in density areas. I am writing this sad story in the hope if we all tell publicly our hospital experi- ences, maybe someone will listen and do something about it. Maybe it will prevent someone else from having this ordeal. I was devastated by his death, by the lack of care he had endured. The whole experience was a nightmare. lY ’We are struggling m to provide ‘ appropriate care’ we we looking for solutions every day to with the increasing needs of our community. I thank Mrs. Ker-Home]! Clarke forritiafixvlgVihg The members of the board of directors and the administrative team recognize there are some sigâ€" nificant challenges ahead and they are committed to finding ways to deal with the current mismatch between demand and the available resources. Mrs. Clarke's observations are correct, we are struggling to provide appropriate care to our comâ€" munity, given the tremendous growth that has occurred and that we are limited by insufficient numbers of beds and space. The hospital is sched- uled for a major expansion, however this will not be completed until 2013. On Dec. 3, the day Mr. Clarke came to the hospital, 13 patients were being “held” in the ER, waiting for an inpatient bed. That day, 161 patients came to be treated and 19 needed to be admitted. This is not unique to Markham Stouffville; every hospital in the GTA is struggling with increasing ER visits and having to “hold” admitted patients. For the ER staff, caring for patients that need in-patient care, while attending to patients as they present with emergency needs, is a significant challenge. It is an unfofiunate fact that, to deal with U crowding in the ER, we have to use stretchers that are Plaged in our While the number of ER visits has increased dramatically, our hospital bed numbers have remained essentially the same. As a result, our beds are almost always full. When the beds are full and a patient presents to the ER who needs to be admit- ted, we have no choice but to “hold” and treat them the ER, until another patient is discharged. When the hospital opened, we were able to treat about 27,000 unscheduled ER visits per year. Today that number has almost doubled. We are now see- ing between 130 to 160 patients every day in our emergency department. Since the hospital opened in 1990, we have experienced steady and unprecedented growth; in fact, York Region is one of the fastest growing regions in all of Canada. Whenever we receive a letter of concern, we conduct a review or investigation of the details so we can learn from the experience and determine how to better support patients, families and hospi- tal staff and identify potential improvements. Our emergency physicians and nurses do their utmost to provide every patient with the best pos- sible care every day. None of our stafl ever wants to treat a patient or their family in a manner that leaves them feeling dissatisfied. I felt the same sense of disappointment our stat? and physicians felt when they reviewed the circumstances surrounding Mr. Clarke's emergency department experience. Markham Stoujfuille chief of staff David Austin responds every hospital in the GTA is struggling with increasing ER visits and having to “hold” admitted patients. Stow Sunâ€"Tribune- Thursday Ian 24. 2008 3