Woman with dementia spends 76 hours in emergency room hallway after being injured in a fall
Family had difficult conversation 'on display' in crowded hallway, daughter says
Rachael Lane was lying on a stretcher in a crowded hallway as her family and a social worker told her she'd never be able to go home again.
The Mount Pearl woman was found on the floor of her apartment on Sunday after suffering a fall. Her family called for an ambulance, and she was sent to the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's.
After waiting several hours in the back of an ambulance due to a patient offload delay, Lane spent the next 76 hours in the busy hospital hallway, on a stretcher, waiting to get into a room.
"The social worker had to go through an assessment and ask her questions about whether she still felt her life was worth living. Can you imagine having that conversation on display?" said her daughter, Heather Carton. "You're in the middle of a hallway. As a family, as an individual, as a woman who is 70 years old and realizing she is never going to see the inside of her home again."
The situation would have been hard for anyone, Carton said, but especially for someone dealing with the early stages of vascular dementia.
"You're not able to turn off the lights, there's constant movement. Basically 76 hours of sleep deprivation. And that's disturbing for anybody, let alone somebody who may have some confusion."
After three days of waiting in a place marked "Corridor Bed 6," Lane was moved to a room in the emergency department. Her family says they were told she'd be waiting there four to five weeks while they looked for a room in a long-term care home.
Her family was frustrated by the possibility of a long wait, with Carton saying the provincial government and health authority should be better prepared for these problems, considering the province's aging population.
Carton said her mom was having a hard time adjusting to relying on other people to help her with her basic needs, and said she was getting some "unfair comments" from staff about it.
"She's in an emergency department, and we totally understand. They're there to deal with urgent emergencies. And when she went in there first, that's what she was. But she is no longer that. So it's upsetting there's no transition plan in place for situations like that."
Despite being told she'd be waiting at least a month, Carton got a call on Friday afternoon — a few hours after being interviewed on The St. John's Morning Show — and was told a bed had opened up at St. Patrick's Mercy Home in St. John's.
CBC News has requested comment from Eastern Health but hadn't heard back by publication.
With files from The St. John's Morning Show