Woman chronicles nine hour wait in Winnipeg ER,

This is a pretty sad story but I guess the really lesson is don't get sick.

"A Winnipeg woman involved in a cycling accident is offering a play-by-play of what she experienced while waiting nine and a half hours for care in the Health Science Centre emergency department."

Many situations of people waiting all day and basically receiving no help. The article essentially says there are no beds and everything is backed up but doesn't get into the meat of the cause.

Underfunded?
Covid overwhelmed?

I can't believe that covid cases requiring hospital care hasn't plummeted. The vaccine should be drastically reducing that number. Even if it's all unvaccinated people, the shear number of possible cases has to be reduced.

winnipegsun.com...

I'm not Canadian so I can't speak first hand.

Opinions?



Eta.
Check out the stitches in her head
She looks like a damn football.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Holy..! No matter. All, any head injuries should be stat.

Alas...treatment is not equal worldwide

Adv Life Support

a reply to: Bluntone22

Waited longer than that in an American ER pre-covid. Non-story. Its what you get when people get free Healthcare and are too lazy to go to a regular doctor.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

Several years ago I injured my hand at work. I drove to the hospital getting there at 4PM. I wasn't seen until 6AM. It is called triage. Those who need help sooner are served, those who can wait, wait. They removed a sliver of steel from my hand and put in a few stitches. I could wait. While I was waiting there were four people from a car accident and a child who wasn't breathing. I can wait.

A few years ago I cut my leg at home. When I got to the ER blood was seeping through the bandage I had on it. A woman fainted at the sight of the blood. I got stitches and was out of there in 30 minutes. I didn't have to wait.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
I can't believe that covid cases requiring hospital care hasn't plummeted. The vaccine should be drastically reducing that number. Even if it's all unvaccinated people, the shear number of possible cases has to be reduced.

A Cousin and several friends are nurses. Several of them work in the ER. One of the problems they are having is that some people are having anxiety attacks on top of COVID. THEY have told me that the media hype, has people so frightened that it actually increases the severity of their symptoms.

The small-ish hospital where my SO works the night shift had in excess of 9-hour waits for five weeks running. It's been very quiet this week and last, though they're still full up with covid patients.

ETA: They've close so many EDs/ERs here locally that 5-6-hour waits are not uncommon in general.

a reply to: Bluntone22

This is crazy. Covid has nurses and doctors burnt out and quitting/taking leave, less rooms available, people running to the ER at any sight of a flu symptom, and on top of that you have that scourge of people who go to the ER for things like doctors notes and to try and get opiates who know exactly what to say to get triaged quickly.

It's, for lack of a better word, a clusterf**$. And what would even be the solution at this point? Hire more doctors and nurses? There are none. Turn people away (they likely should, but that seems wrong)? Make private emergency clinics available where the patient/private insurance pays? They'd likely go out of business because there's way less room in Canada to inflate prices to cover costs and turn a profit.

It's an issue that won't go away until Covid goes away or Canada injects a huge amount of money into the hospitals.

According to worldmeters.info Canada has 638 serious or critical cases right now and around 45k mild cases. Assuming mild cases wouldn't be hospitalized I hardly think 638 cases nationwide would have a big impact on hospital wait times. Something isn't adding up.

When I lived in San Antonio I took my kid to the ER for some stiches on his chin... Nothing like walking into a room with 40+ illegals waiting to be seen.

Good job she was wearing her helmet otherwise that would have been a nasty injury.

I'm not sure much can be read either way as it's such a minor injury. Stitching it up looks an odd choice and poorly done, seems minor laceration that sutures or glue are more suited for.

There's no swelling or bruising and she can't have been that disorientated if she was able to pay attention to and remember and recall all those details.

A proper knock to the head swells up like an egg and you'll barely remember having gone to hospital; let alone be able to write a blog post recording the minor details f the experience.

in late 2019 my dad was visiting hospitals regularly for cancer, macular degeneration and other issues. each appointment involved a minimum of at least a two hour wait but on one particular night, just near xmas, i sat with him in a hospital corridor for over 10 and a half hours. the floors were awash with litter, the toilet cubicle floor was covered in blood. there were mentally ill patients screaming for people who weren't there. there were physically ill people calling loudly 'nurse!' over and over and over but being ignored. there were at least two criminals escorted to see a doctor or whoever by police to rooms in which they proceeded to scream and kick the door. outside the ER there were 2 ambulances and 4 police vans, one police car. my dad was in agony the entire time. each hour felt like a day. come the morning some doctor came to see him, talked to him for no more than 5 minutes and left. it was utter bedlam, utterly dispiriting and as far removed from the concept of medical care as it's possible to be. it was a shambolic disgrace. this was befor the word 'covid' had entered anyone's vocabulary. the NHS was a failure and disaster already. since dad died soon after i no longer had to endure such nightmares, for which i am grateful. the NHS, like pretty much all UK infrastructure, is in a tailspin to collapse. i did not clap for the 'heroes'.

a reply to: DeadlyStaringFrog

Canada is geographically massive and winnipeg manitoba is relatively tiny and remote. All of manitoba has a population of 1.3 million (compared to Ontario - 14.5 million, B.C. - 5 million, Quebec - 8.4 million). What I'm saying is that Winnipeg is a medium sized city (at best), in the middle of nowhere, and it wouldn't take many cases to fill their ICU. The entire province has only 115 ICU beds and 35 of those are occupied by covid patients.

Edit to add some context:

The total area of Manitoba is about 650,000 KM^2. California is 424,000 KM^2 and Texas is 696,000 KM^2.

Regular wait time in Manitoba. They had to tend to all the drunk butts first because if a native dies on the premises for any reason it will be national news and time for reconciliation.

I waited 7 hours in the ER with my wife who had a inflamed appendix that needed to be removed ASAP. Once we got a room the door was left open and I could over hear the other sufferers of ailments. Every single one has the same story. I was drinking for a week or two straight now I am puking blood. The hospitals in northern Manitoba are overrun with the addicted not the infected.

a reply to: Bluntone22

a reply to: JIMC5499

Anxiety attacks are the worst. And i no longer believe the media when it comes hopstials being overwhelmed with Covid.

a reply to: Athetos
You think the media are covering those addicted and proclaiming them as infected?

The media wont touch the issue with a ten foot poll. They don’t even attempt to stop shop lifting at liquor store in Winnipeg because the guards would get stabbed or shot over a six pack of beer.

Winnipeg is a crazy place. I personally know 3 people who have been murdered there. Guys i grew up with and moved to city. 1 guy was wrong place wrong time the other 2 won stupid prizes for playing stupid games.

I myself am a alcoholic in recovery and have lost too many friends to booze and drugs. Close to dozen total I would say and I am thirty. Suicide, stupid on atvs and snow machines accidents, house fires while passed out, drowning. All could have been prevented if the people were sober.

I don’t know a single person who has died from covid and I have yet to meet anyone who personally knows someone who has died from covid.


a reply to: HawkEyi

There was definitely a personal advantage for me having my wife be an RN in the ICU right next door to the ER for times like, oh I don’t know.....having a furnace blow up in my face on the boat...
Always got right in, no prob. 😎


a reply to: Bluntone22

a reply to: JIMC5499

I am an emergency triage specialist ...retired 1st responder...it's my thing.

If I saw you...60 secs basic assessment while stats being taken, history etc...all the while...and...if you need to....you're GOIN'.

Hosp Triage and Urgent Care Er's are different things constrained by staff, $$, protocol, directives...

Yes, all political...sadly. Triage is assess who needs what, where, how fast.

Glad it isn't like that everywhere...

She must have "felt" like she was going to die? What was she doing at the "ER"? She couldn't buff it out herself?
She needed stiches on her eyebrow?

Sorry, but that's not a "life" threatening "emergency". And if she had "to Wait 9 hours" for something she could've done herself?... I'm not emotionally aroused by this.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
I can't believe that covid cases requiring hospital care hasn't plummeted. The vaccine should be drastically reducing that number. Even if it's all unvaccinated people, the shear number of possible cases has to be reduced.

This is what has irked me for a while now, with so many purported to be 100% vaccinated, the cases still grow. Apparently. Which says it's not doing bugger all.

And when I've seen nurses terminated - without warning - for not being vaccinated, perhaps that is what is causing such a burden on hospitals?

The ones who were held high as being the hero's for doing above and beyond in caring for the sick during this pandemonium, now told "get jabbed or get lost..."

Someone turn the world blender off, please...