A Nova Scotia woman is organizing a rally to call on the provincial government to improve the health-care system in response to the recent deaths of two women, who passed away after extensive wait times at local emergency departments.
Jennifer MacDonald, a resident of Sydney on Cape Breton Island, said she is organizing the rally out of fear that the tragedy that befell the two deceased women,
Charlene Snow and
Allison Holthoff, could happen to more Nova Scotians.
“I’m doing it because I’m scared. I’m scared for myself, scared for my family, my friends, and people on my island and my province,” she told
Global News.
“(Nova Scotia Health Minister) Michelle Thompson has said that ER deaths are unacceptable, so I don’t understand why we’re still accepting them,” MacDonald added.
The rally, dubbed the “March of Concern,” is slated for Jan. 21 at 11 a.m., outside the Cape Breton city hall.
Long Wait Times
Snow, a 67-year-old woman, arrived at the emergency department of the Cape Breton Regional Hospital on Dec. 30, 2022, seeking treatment for “jaw pain and flu-like symptoms.” After waiting for seven hours, she was then told that the doctor couldn’t see her until the next morning.Snow then called her husband to pick her up at the hospital to go home, but died within the hour.
This experience is shared by other Nova Scotians, said MacDonald, who recently took her mother-in-law to the ER at Cape Breton Regional Hospital due to some heart problems, reported Global News. After waiting roughly seven hours, MacDonald said her mother-in-law gave up and left.
While waiting, she said they had encountered someone they knew, who had been waiting about eight hours.
“Another woman that was there … was trying to get some attention to use the washroom because she was not able to get there herself. And after asking four times, this woman urinated herself,” MacDonald said.
Holthoff, the 37-year-old woman who passed away on New Year’s Eve, waited for more than six hours to get receive medical attention after arriving at the emergency room of the Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre (CHRCC) in Amherst, Nova Scotia.
Suffering from severe stomach pain, Holthoff had curled up in the fetal position on a blanket on the hospital floor at one point, but still didn’t receive much response from medical staff, according to her husband, Grunter Holthoff.
Families Call for Change
The families of the two deceased women have launched separate actions to push for changes to the provincial health-care system.
Eric McIntyre, Holthoff’s cousin, launched
a petition on Change.org, seeking public support to push Premier Tim Houston to take immediate action to improve the health-care system. Her petition suggested several actions, including adding health-care staff to the temporary waiting room in the ER at CRHCC to monitor and provide ongoing medical assessments of people waiting to be seen.
The petition also asks the provincial government to communicate with families that have lost a loved one in the ER department while awaiting care, and ensure an investigation is completed.
Katherine Snow, the daughter-in-law of Charlene Snow, launched a website called
Nova Scotia Healthcare Crisis, through which she is gathering stories of similar cases of ER-related deaths to push for a change in the province’s health-care system.
As of Jan. 16, the website says it has 7,300 subscribers, with over 900 stories being shared.
