Bizarre, Things That Tick Me Off, Torts

Sorry, Not My Examination Room: 82-Year-Old Told To Call For Ambulance After Fall In Hospital!

Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

In yet another sign of the Apocalypse, an 82-year-old grandmother was denied medical attention for 30 minutes and told to call an ambulance after she fell and broke her hip. That’s bad enough, but what is particularly infuriating is that she was told this by staff at Greater Niagara General Hospital where she’d fallen.

Doreen Wallace was leaving the Canadian hospital with her son after visiting her dying husband. She fell in the lobby area and fractured her hip, cutting her arm in the process on a metal grate. Seeing the fall, a hospital security guard called for help and rushed to her side. Two nurses from the ER responded to the prone octogenarian, but refused help until the victim’s son called an ambulance and paramedics arrived to assess the situation.

“It was horrible. It really was. Everybody who walked through the door stopped and stared at me,” said Mrs. Wallace, who already had a broken arm from a previous fall. Her son Mike, who had frantically tried to get help from the on-site medical staff, added, ” We’re probably, maybe, like a 50-yard walk, literally, down to the emergency department.”

The only compassionate person on staff apparently was the security guard who wrapped Wallace’s head in a blanket and tried to wipe the blood away with a paper towel. An orthopedic surgeon s finally intervened, and, with  the assistance of an aide, moved the poor woman to a wheel chair.

Adding to the farce, when paramedics did arrive, they were dispatched from far away St. Catharines Hospital because none from Niagara General were available. The supervisor of the Niagara Health System said the incident stemmed from a communication problem among staff. Apparently, they were operating under an old rule that required the staff to call an ambulance if persons were injured on the premises. A review is underway, and the Canadian Health Minister promises reform.

Call me unconvinced. Last April, 39-year-old, Jennifer James died from a “catastrophic heart event” (English translation: Heart Attack) after Niagara General Emergency Department staff refused her aid after her boyfriend rushed the unconscious and dyspneic woman to the hospital parking lot and begged for help. He was told to call 9-1-1.

Canada’s highest courts have set limits on medical malpractice awards and the country’s liability laws make establishing professional negligence difficult.  Health care providers’  insurance companies defend lawsuits very vigorously and a large portion (up to 83%) of  their premiums are sometimes reimbursed by the government.  Punitive damages are rare. Ms. Wallace may have an uphill fight but it’s a climb worth taking.

Source:  Toronto Star ; Law Library of Congress

~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

56 thoughts on “Sorry, Not My Examination Room: 82-Year-Old Told To Call For Ambulance After Fall In Hospital!”

  1. Woosty’s still a Cat
    1, October 22, 2011 at 9:21 am
    Canada’s highest courts have set limits on medical malpractice awards and the country’s liability laws make establishing professional negligence difficult.
    ———————————————————-
    and yet this IS the road our courts and government is taking us down….

    (down is the most operative word….)

    ******************

    Woosty, I’m not sure of your reference – is it to limited liability or public health care?

    I think it’s to limited liability, something I think is a gross miscarriage of justice: politics as justice in fact. If I’m correct in my understanding you don’t have to bother yourself with a response.

  2. eniobob, This is how I got attacked by the two anons. They learned the word “misandry” and have used it on me ever since. You are only getting attacked by one of them so count your blessings.

  4. When people want to know why people consider current feminism a joke and a scam and harboring tons of actual misandry, we only have to look at posts like yours’ enio and swarth, to understand why.

    The obvious implication from your post enio is that if this had happened to a man, you wouldn’t give a shit enough to write a comment.

    Screw you.

  5. @SM, @EB,

    You’re both dipshits.

    This took place in Canada, where Washington Repubicans are not trampling on women’s rights.

    And there is absolutely nothing in the article that suggests this behavior was due to the 82 year old being a woman.

    So all you are doing is being obnoxious and threadjacking, and inviting the disdain and disgust of anyone with common sense, who will use your bullshit to decide most issues that idiots like you harp about are inflated, exaggerated, bullshit.

    Quit being part of the problem.

  6. This sounds like a staff that has been burdened with a bunch of management directives that are asinine and ineffective but have been rigidly enforced by those whose motives are other than the welfare of the sick or injured. The staff probably thought, with good reason, they could lose their jobs if they had done anything other than follow the rules. (And they also know that the publicity generated by their following the rules in egregious situations is one way to get the rules changed).

    The situation is not limited to public institutions — it maybe even worse in profit driven, private institutions.

  7. eniobob,

    I need a clarification of how you insulted anyone on this thread….I have reread it and am still…..

  10. “eniobob

    “”Man’s inhumanity to man begins with man’s inhumanity to woman.” Marilyn Stasio, 2008[12]“”

    Stop being part of the problem, Duane.

  12. Canada’s highest courts have set limits on medical malpractice awards and the country’s liability laws make establishing professional negligence difficult.
    ———————————————————-
    and yet this IS the road our courts and government is taking us down….

    (down is the most operative word….)

  14. “”Man’s inhumanity to man begins with man’s inhumanity to woman.” Marilyn Stasio, 2008[12]”

  16. This is one of the stories that as I ride I keep repeating louder and louder … “what? … are you kidding me … what?!” Tex usually leaves the room

  17. i think by that time i would have insisted the ambulance take me somewhere else.

    ah well, this will give fox & fiends, and rush limbaugh etc, something to talk about other than OWS.

  18. Mark,

    Indeed a good article. It also illustrates the point of that rather astute observer of human nature, our friend Voltaire, who famously said, “Common sense is not so common.”

  19. Call.

    An ambulance.

    What genius thought of that rule in the first place?

    Even more to the point, what moron would follow it?

    Take your pick . . .

    stupid \ˈstü-pəd, ˈstyü-\, adj.,

    1a : slow of mind : obtuse b : given to unintelligent decisions or acts : acting in an unintelligent or careless manner c : lacking intelligence or reason : brutish
    2: dulled in feeling or sensation : torpid
    3: marked by or resulting from unreasoned thinking or acting : senseless

    callous \ˈka-ləs\, adj.,

    1a : being hardened and thickened b : having calluses
    2a : feeling no emotion b : feeling or showing no sympathy for others : hard-hearted

    All are applicable to the actions of the hospital staff with the exception of the guard and the intervening surgeon, who upon getting Mrs. Wallace into a wheelchair should have taken her into the ER and told those bunch of slacking bastards to get to work. It’s a sad day when a hospital guard apparently understands the Hippocratic Oath better than the staff.

    The guard deserves a raise.

    The shift supervisors deserve to be fired.

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