A patient’s death has stirred up anger among hundreds of St. Mary’s Hospital staff members, according to sources within the hospital.
The ire stems from an incident in November, when a man walked into the hospital’s emergency room saying he was in pain and lost consciousness. An ultrasound revealed he had a ruptured aortic aneurysm and needed immediate vascular surgery to save his life.
Carl Emond, thehospital’s only vascular surgeon, was called but he reportedly told the ER staff he was no longer allowed to perform this type of surgery.
That decision was made months earlier by the Quebec government’s new West Island Integrated Health Centre, which now oversees St. Mary’s.
Staff were forced to transfer the patient by ambulance to the Glen superhospital. According to a staff member there, it was too late to help the man and he died soon after arriving.
According to the sources at St. Mary’s, who asked to remain anonymous, 128 professionals at the hospital have signed and sent a letter to administrators objecting to the decision. They said the decision to restrict emergency vascular surgeries was made without consulting frontline health professionals at the hospital and that the ER was not informed of the decision.
West Island Integrated Health Centre communications officer Claire Roy and its General Director Benoit Morin both declined interview requests but did send a press release saying that the death was regrettable but “medical literature indicates the mortality rate of a ruptured aortic abdominal aneurysm varies between 80 and 90 per cent, even if emergency surgery is performed.”
According to the statement, the decision to send emergency vascular patients to other hospitals, made in autumn 2015, was a medical one as other hospitals are better equipped to handle them.
2016 01 11 Précision Chirurgie Vasculaire 2
