Neighbours help B.C. senior after frustrating ambulance wait
City councillor says case is an example of province's health-care challenges
A senior in Williams Lake, B.C., who dislocated her shoulder Sunday waited an hour for an ambulance before learning there was no ambulance available.
Her neighbours and sister helped her get to hospital, while a local city councillor says her case is another example of the province's health-care challenges.
Judy Launchbury fell in her driveway in Williams Lake, a city of around 11,150 people about 240 kilometres south of Prince George. The 73-year-old said she felt helpless as she screamed in pain for an hour before her neighbours came to help.
"I tried and tried and tried to get up and couldn't," she said.
Her neighbours called for an ambulance right away, but learned nothing was available after another hour of waiting. Instead, they had to use straps to hoist her into a van and her sister then drove her to the emergency room at the local Cariboo Memorial Hospital.
"Williams Lake is quite a large city now, and there should be always an ambulance available," Launchbury said. "What if I was dying or somebody else was dying?"
Scott Nelson, a city councillor who Launchbury called while she was in distress, said her situation illustrates the magnitude of the problems faced by B.C.'s health-care system. Nelson said regular ER closures in the region require paramedics to drive long distances to respond to calls, which is a big part of the problem.
For instance, Cariboo Memorial Hospital — which serves not just Williams Lake but also the surrounding region — closed its emergency department 10 times in July alone. In fact, its ER was closed the day before Launchbury's fall.
"All the pieces are starting to literally fall apart because there is so much pressure on the entire system," Nelson said.
Nelson told B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix about Launchbury during a Williams Lake city council meeting Tuesday and asked him to investigate the issue of ambulance access.
Other elected representatives and community members in the province have been speaking out about the challenges around health-care capacity.
Dix responded in the meeting that the ministry has worked to reduce emergency response times over the last couple of years. He added that the vast majority of ambulance paramedics in the region were casual when he became minister of health.
"We have changed that fundamentally for communities like yours," the minister said. "That doesn't mean everything is perfect every day. But on the ambulance service, there had been neglect for a generation."
Dix added in the meeting that he would take a look at Launchbury's case.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Health announced that a new urgent and primary care centre will be coming to Williams Lake early next year. It says the centre will focus on providing same-day care for people who need access to primary care, but do not require an emergency department.
CBC News has requested an interview with Dix, but the ministry declined.
Meanwhile, Ian Tait, the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C.'s communications director, called Launchbury's case unfortunate, though he also said paramedics work on a triage system based on the availability of ambulances and the severity of the medical situations, with the cardiac arrests or overdoses being prioritized over a fracture or a broken limb.
He added that paramedics are playing an ever-expanding role in B.C.
"If you just take a look at these ER closures, it's the paramedics that are stepping up to fill the gap in the community," he said. "It's up to the paramedics to up staff and take those patients and transport those patients to different hospitals."
But Tait also commended the province for having "completely reinvigorated and refunded the ambulance service." Instead, he said the challenge lies more with recruitment, especially for smaller communities.
"I feel like the NDP government has done their part for the ambulance service … and now we just need to get the people to go there and staff those ambulances," he said.
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With files from Rafferty Baker