Brian Wootton looked healthy when he and his wife set off on their planned three-week trip to the west coast in June. But he fell ill, was admitted to the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, BC, and was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin T-cell lymphoma.
Royal Jubilee submitted a request more than two weeks ago to transfer him to Gray Bruce Health Services in Owen Sound, Ont. — the largest hospital closest to his home — but is still in Victoria because the Owen Sound facility is filled beyond capacity.
“It’s been an absolute nightmare, as you can imagine, having to spend every day in the hospital and every night alone in a hotel room,” his wife Laurie Wootton told CBC News in a Zoom interview from the hospital in Victoria.
“It was an incredibly lonely, frustrating, out-of-control situation.”
Their situation is yet another example of how strained Ontario hospitals are after a summer of emergency room closures and long wait times for patients to be admitted. The Ford government responded in August with a five-point plan aimed at reducing the number of people in hospitals.
Wootton says her husband’s medical oncologist at Royal Jubilee first contacted Gray Bruce Health Services to arrange the interprovincial transfer in mid-August.
Wootton was admitted to the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, BC. in late June and was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin T-cell lymphoma. (Mike McArthur/CBC)
“All the paperwork has been done for about two weeks and so far we haven’t heard at all,” Wootton said. “No one understands what takes so long.”
He said hospital staff in Victoria had “tried very hard to get through to the right people to make this all happen, but we seem to be in some sort of administrative hell, frankly, on the other end”.
A spokesman for the Gray Bruce Health System said the hospital in Owen Sound is overloaded every day, understaffed in many departments, and for the past two weeks has postponed elective surgeries for some patients who may need to stay overnight because there were no beds available.
“We are aware of this family’s situation and are working to do what we can, within our own capacity, to support this patient,” said Mary Margaret Crapper, the hospital’s chief of communications and public relations. , in a statement to the CBC. News.
Crapper said the hospital’s first goal is to provide beds for emergency room patients who need to be admitted, but it was unable to accommodate some of them in hospital wards, so they had to remain in the ER.
“To complicate matters, one of our medical units is in an outbreak of COVID-19 and until the isolation period ends, we cannot admit new patients to that unit, nor can we discharge patients who are going to another facility, such as for example long-term care,” he said.
Brian and Laurie Wootton were vacationing in British Columbia when he became ill and was hospitalized. (Submitted)
Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition, says that while the current pressure on the province’s hospitals is unprecedented, it is the result of long-term downsizing.
“In this competition for scarce resources, patients are just paying a horrible price,” Mehra said in an interview. “It’s not fair and it’s not something a local hospital can sort out. These are policy choices made by our provincial governments.”
Canada has among the fewest beds per capita among developed countries, and Ontario has the fewest acute care beds per capita in the country.
Wootton says she feels distressed about the wait for a bed at Owen Sound Hospital and worries about what her husband’s experience will be once he is transferred.
“I know hospitals are under pressure and have been through the pandemic,” he said.
“It’s the first time we’ve needed their help and we feel like they’ve forgotten us.”
TELL US YOUR STORY: Email CBC News if you’d like to describe your current experience with Ontario’s strained health care system.
