A B.C. woman is raising new concerns about the state of the province’s emergency rooms after she says her husband with terminal cancer waited 14 hours, only to be discharged without treatment.
Melissa McIntyre’s husband Cory has Stage 4 colon cancer and continues to fight the disease despite being given just months to live in early 2023.
His treatment has involved an ostomy surgery, which leaves him prone to dehydration, and multiple rounds of radiation and chemotherapy.
Last week, after a chemo treatment, McIntyre said Cory became violently ill and was unable to keep water or even his pain medication down.
“The palliative team had always told us that if he missed a dose of his pain meds he would go into a pain crisis, which essentially means that you can’t keep up with the pain and your pain meds don’t work properly, because they have to stay built up in your system,” she said.
“He had missed a whole bunch of them basically because he was throwing them up.”
McIntyre said she was also worried about how dehydrated her husband was becoming, and after phone calls to his oncology doctors and the nurse line was told her best bet was to go to the emergency room, despite concerns he could be exposed to infections with his weakened immune system.
Despite being told someone would call ahead for them, McIntyre said they were left in the Abbotsford General Hospital’s general waiting room for hours, and that staff wouldn’t give her husband fluids or anti-nauseants until they saw a doctor.
“(The nurse at reception) said, well, wait times are six hours, you have three hours left, go sit down,” she said.
“I understand that they are very, very understaffed and very short on beds. But really, I would have been happy with an IV pole sitting in the corner somewhere just so he was getting the stuff he needed.”
McIntyre said she eventually had to go home and feed her children and left her husband at the hospital.
He ultimately waited 14 hours, and then was discharged after being told he wasn’t dehydrated, was fine, and needed to go home, she alleged.
“I am a care aide so I can tell better than the average person, but I think anyone would look at him and see he was severely dehydrated,” she said.
“His eyes were sunken way into his head, his face had lost so much weight, and at least 15 pounds he had lost in those couple days.”
The next day, Cory was so dehydrated he couldn’t get out of bed on his own. She took him to the palliative care facility, where staff told her they didn’t have any beds available and sent the couple back to the ER.
This time, she said, palliative staff called the hospital and directed them not to release him until another bed was available.
Cory, she said, finally got his IV and fluids after another eight-hour wait.
“It had been days and days of being dehydrated with no medication, and now because of that he is going to have to be in the hospital for probably two weeks to regain all of the fluids he lost, regain the weight he lost, and get his pain meds built back up in his system again,” she said.
Fraser Health acknowledged the family’s frustration and said it had reached out to them about their experience.
But it said in the emergency room setting, patients are always triaged based on the severity of their symptoms, not their underlying condition.
“Those with life-threatening issues are seen first, which may increase wait times for patients whose issues are less urgent,” spokesperson Nick Eagland said in an email.
“Like many hospitals in B.C. and across Canada, we face times of higher patient volumes and staffing challenges, which can lead to longer wait times. We are working hard to provide safe, timely care and are grateful for the patience and understanding of our patients, families, and communities.”
It added that BC Cancer-Abbotsford is the lead agency for cancer care in most circumstances.
In a statement of its own, BC Cancer said it has 19 part-time doctors and nurse practitioners providing pain and symptom management, but acknowledged it was “currently able to offer this service on a limited basis.”
“We are actively recruiting additional providers to increase provider support to better serve patients in the community,” spokesperson Christopher Foulds said in an email.
McIntyre said she understands the health-care system is facing many competing pressures, but said those shouldn’t come at the expense of patients in vulnerable states like her husband’s.
“The fact that we can’t get something as simple as IV fluids without being seen by a doctor, and why it took 14 hours that day to be seen by a doctor, and then for that doctor to say he wasn’t dehydrated?” she said.
“Cancer patients should not have to go to emergency and sit with all of the sick people and get sicker and pretty much get denied help.”