"Hospital staff should not have called an ambulance to deal with an 82-year-old Niagara Falls woman who broke her hip after falling near the main entrance of Greater Niagara General Hospital Oct. 8, says Niagara Health System supervisor Kevin Smith.
"Ambulances don't do inside-hospital transfers," said Smith.He said Doreen Wallace's injury should have prompted a staffer to call what hospital workers refer to as a code blue, which would have immediately deployed a team of medical staff to the situation.
While hospital staff attended to Wallace, who was visiting her ailing husband at GNGH, the woman's family said they were told an ambulance would have to be called to assist.
The family claimed Wallace laid on the floor for 28 minutes before being admitted to the emergency department.
Speaking at a press conference at the NHS' Niagara-on-the-Lake site Wednesday, Smith said he's asked the hospital system to make sure every staffer knows what to do if this kind of thing happens again.
"I've asked the Niagara Health System personnel to ensure that we have a very, very, very clear process across our multiple sites so that everyone understands what we do when we see a patient in distress inside our facility," he said.
Smith was repeatedly asked why a patient inside a hospital was told to call an ambulance — a decision that seems surprising given the controversy generated by two similar incidents in recent months.
"I wish I had a better answer for you in terms of how did it happen again, particularly inside the building."
In July, Coun. Joyce Morocco's husband John went into the hospital seeking help for his barely conscious wife, who was in the parking lot. He said he was told to call an ambulance.
In April, Charlie Poisson, the boyfriend of Jennifer James, who died five days after she was admitted to GNGH, told The Niagara Falls Review he brought James by car to the hospital. Upon arrival, he ran into the main front doors and down the hall to the emergency department. He said he was told paramedics would be dispatched.
After about three to five minutes, when no paramedics came, they brought James in by a wheelchair and she received care. Poisson said he was told that the "policy was that we have to call an ambulance."
He was later told by doctors James had suffered a catastrophic heart event.Smith suggested the failure on the hospital's part to learn from the two previous incidents is a management issue.
"Errors happen, but the fact the error has occurred on more than one occasion without correction concerns us deeply about process and structure and communication and accountability."
The supervisor said three hospital workers responded to Wallace in less than a minute. They included a nurse who was on her break, a security guard, and a housekeeper. At some point in those first few minutes, 911 was called from a hospital phone, with Smith adding it was not yet clear who made the call or who suggested the call be made.
Smith also said he wouldn't consider terminating anybody until staffers complete an internal review.
"I don't believe in a hanging judge, I want to have all the information."
Health Minister Deb Matthews called Wallace's incident a "very regrettable situation."
In an email to The Review, Matthews credited Smith, who she recently appointed supervisor, for responding quickly and requesting a review of the incident.
"I hope the findings of that review help ensure that what happened to Doreen Wallace doesn't happen again," said Matthews.
Neither Wallace, or members of her family, could be reached for comment Wednesday.
Wayne Pine Sr., who calls Wallace a friend of the family, decided to protest alone outside GNGH in the rain Wednesday morning. For about two hours, the Niagara Falls resident waved signs that called for the NHS to be abolished and for more local control over hospital decision making, as well as "justice for Doreen and all residents."
"I've lost total trust and respect in (the NHS)," said Pine. "What happened to Doreen was disgusting and ridiculous."
Pine said he is a retired paramedic who worked with the ambulance service in Dunnville. He said he also worked at GNGH as a certified nursing orderly.
"(Doreen) is a very kind-hearted person. Her husband, who passed away, was a (Second World War) veteran," he said. "If that was (Premier) Dalton McGuinty who fell like that, do you think he'd have to wait half an hour?
"And the more ambulances tied up at the hospital means less are out on the roads.""
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Funny how the Liberal appointed NHS supervisor, Kevin Smith, is now saying that this unnamed hospital staffer was wrong in not helping Wallace when she fell and broke her hip inside the GNGH.
Let's note several items:
First off - notice that in the above story by reporter Ray Spiteri, NO LIBERALS were mentioned, nor asked to comment, on this incident!! Isn't that precious?!
The Liberal-friendly St.Catharines Standard has purposefully avoided asking Liberal hacks Jim Bradley or Kim Craitor any questions about this, in the same way they had hidden these Liberal hacks from scrutiny in the past.
There is no convenient 'harris' anymore, unfortunately, for the Standard, for Kimmy'n'Jimmy, and for the yellow-shirted-socialists to blame: there is only their dreamy, unaccountable, perverted, failing Tommy Douglasonian health monopolism.
Let's all remember, there is NO LONGER A BOARD OF DIRECTORS left to blame at the NHS - this monopoly is being SOLELY run by none other than Kevin Smith, and the Liberal-controlled LHIN, and therefore, McGuinty's Liberal cabinet.
We all remember how the NDP socialists and the Standard loved to dump on Debbie Sevenpifer, while pretending that Liberal scumbags Jim Bradley and Kim Craitor had nothin' to do with running the health care monopoly!
Why the f*ck isn't Kevin Smith being held responsible for the Wallace incident?
He's now 'the MAN'; he's now the manager of 'management issues'; he's to blame!
Smith is Bradley's and Craitor's [and Deb Matthews'] sock-puppet at the NHS!
If NHS staff didn't know the procedures, then Smith is now to blame; 'Supervisor' Smith should have supervised the staff, and ensured they knew the procedures; ensured that they were/are competent and trained for the challenges of their job. Why is Smith saying only now that he will 'ask to ensure that the process is clear'? What else doesn't this cozy union-infected monopolist self-serving health cabal at the NHS 'know'?
Do these monopolist f*cks think that healthcare is some kind of f*cking joke; that however and whenever they f*ck up, that however many patients they harm, that Jim Bradley, Craitor, or some union hack (not to mention the Liberal-infected Niagara press) will cover for them (while finding a 'harris' to blame, naturally) and that they simply can go on their merry way without any accountability?
Why isn't anyone asking if Smith is doing his job?
Is this supervisor, two-months into the job, already failing in his responsibilities? Are we just now learning that the supervisor is not up to speed and not solely in control of the NHS?
Was / is Smith competent to solely supervise the NHS, in the first place??
We were led to believe that somehow there would be changes at the NHS, but all we see are the same old monopolist excuses, and the same old monopolist unaccountability.
Why aren't Craitor and Bradley demanding that their boy Kev get his shit together? It's telling how Deb Matthews coyly credits (ie, circles the wagons around) her appointee Smith for being so-on-the-ball with this!
[...Can ya imagine if this had been under Harris' watch?! The Standard's wrong-righters and Deb Matthews and Good Ole Jimmy himself would be sputtering with indignance and rage! But now... feh... this is only a mere misunderstanding..!]
It's telling also that the Standard and Niagara Falls Review can quickly conjure up people who've 'lost trust and respect for the NHS' - yet, there's hardly anyone that they can find who has lost trust and repect for
- the Liberals who created this Mess in the NHS;
- for the Liberals who created the HIP to 'save money;
- for the Liberals who created the LHIN - which OVERSEES the NHS!!
Funny that the NHS is the narrative in Niagara's media, but not the Liberals who (through their LHIN proxy) control the NHS!
Why aren't Wendy Metcalfe's laughable, pathetic wrong-righters over at the Standard Bradley Buttlicker also asking Craitor and Bradley and Jim Diodati, btw, about where all the ambulances were in Niagara Falls that day, seeing that the only one available had to come from St.Catharines? What was that all about? Aren't there enough ambulances available in Niagara Falls, keeping in mind all the tourists which are also there? Maybe an ambulance should have been called from the States.
Why isn't anyone asking Niagara Falls mayor, and Liberal hack, Jim Diodati why he hasn't yet issued a public warning to visiting tourists - never mind to the locals - about the dangers of the Liberal-run health care monopoly in Niagara Falls?
Why isn't the St.Catharines Standard asking Jim Bradley how his Liberal-instigated HIP (the HIP was created not by the NHS, but by McGuinty's Liberals) factored in Wallace's broken hip?
Why isn't the St.Catharines Standard asking Ontario's Safety Minister at the time - that would be Good Ole Jim Bradley - about why patients aren't safe in Ontario's Liberal-liar-controlled monopoly-run hospitals!?
Where's that in depth coverage by the St.Catharines Bradleyphile Standard examining the secretive LHIN's role in this incident? Why hadn't the LHIN - after all these years as a McGuinty shill - ensured that the NHS staff were competent enough to know their own internal procedures?! Did the LHIN even know anything about this - if not, why not?!
Why isn't the St.Catharines Standard Liberal Shoeshiner asking McGuinty why he lied about conducting a province-wide LHIN review?!
You can trust that the St.Catharines Bradley Bootlicking Standard won't be holding any Liberal, or any Liberal institution, to account.
It's all about dutifully cleaning Bradley's Liberal laundry, and coddling Liberal incompetency.
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