Rodney Doyle suffered a stroke in August. But the emergency room where he lives in St. Lawrence was closed, and the only working ambulance was taking another patient to a hospital. (Rodney Doyle/Facebook)
When the right side of Rodney Doyle’s body went numb on August 26, he knew he was having a stroke. His wife called for an ambulance to be sent to their home in St. Lawrence, on Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula, but there was none available.
He was already taking another person to the hospital, and the nearest emergency room in St. Lawrence was closed, Doyle, 52, told CBC News in a recent interview.
The son and his brother had no choice but to load him into a truck and begin the 30-minute drive to the nearest emergency room in Burin.
“It was a very scary situation at the time because I knew what was happening to me,” Doyle said.
Doyle says he’s had ongoing health problems over the past few years, and the situation has also scared his wife.
“We just didn’t know if I was going to make it to Burin in time or not,” he said.
American Memorial Health Center in St. Lawrence has faced sporadic and intermittent closures since late summer due to staff shortages. (Eastern Health)
Doyle said they encountered the ambulance on the freeway when it was halfway back to St. Lawrence after the crew dropped off the first patient at the hospital.
“They had to get me back out of the truck, put me on a stretcher and take me back to the hospital in Burin,” he said.
“It was a very terrible night.”
Consistency crisis
St. Lawrence Mayor Kevin Pittman calls the situation a “horror story” and fears outcomes will get worse if access to emergency health services is not restored.
“We haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll guarantee you in the next little while, if this continues, we’re going to have a death, and that death is going to be caused by a lack of service here in St. Lawrence,” said Pittman, who says their services for emergency care have been decreasing since the end of July.
There is a continuity crisis at the emergency room in St. Lawrence, which has been closed sporadically for nearly 70 days since July 20. The ER is closed a mix of days and nights and has been closed more than it has been open.
It is one of about a dozen rural emergency departments in the province that have been dealing with intermittent closures due to staff shortages since the summer.
Every time the St. Lawrence ER closes, Pittman said, he feels helpless.
St. Lawrence Mayor Kevin Pittman is worried there will be more deaths in the community as their emergency services are cut. (Terry Roberts/CBC)
He said his fears are compounded because the city only has one full-time ambulance, which makes for a harrowing situation when two emergencies arise at once, like when Doyle suffered a stroke.
He says the city council asked Eastern Health for a second ambulance. In a statement to CBC News, regional health authorities said they have funded a second ambulance to operate after hours when the emergency department is closed.
But like the city’s emergency services, Pittman said, that coverage is sporadic because there aren’t always paramedics on duty when extra coverage is needed.
On top of that, Pittman said, when the emergency room is closed, ambulance transport times to Burin Hospital are longer. He says ambulances from their town respond to calls as far as Lamalin – 40 kilometers away – which takes the ambulance service up to two hours.
Fears for the future of the emergency department
Meanwhile, Pittman has another experience with Eastern Health.
He says health authorities are not doing a good job of advertising the fragmented emergency service and it is confusing residents and causing grief.
Many in the town of about 1,200 are elderly, Pittman noted; some are not connected to the Internet and don’t always see emergency room closing notices. Others have no transportation and their only way to a hospital is by ambulance, he said.
Eastern Health says it is funding a second ambulance when the St Lawrence emergency department closes. But Pittman says coverage has been sporadic. (Heather Gillis/CBC)
Pittman worries that his town’s hospital is headed for total closure.
“Eastern Health keeps telling us, ‘Well, your numbers are going down in St. Lawrence. Well, I can tell you why our numbers are going down,” he said. “Once our residents have an emergency, they never know if the hospital is open or not open for emergencies, so they take the nearest ambulance to Burin to get their care as quickly as possible.”
There used to be two doctors and about a dozen nurses at American Memorial Health Center, he said, which is now down to one doctor and four nurses because of staff shortages.
Pittman says Eastern Health worked out a deal with staff earlier this month that would see the emergency room open five days a week, with Tuesdays and Thursdays closed until the first week of December. But that agreement soon fell apart, he said.
“They would base their emergency care … on the schedule of a nurse who had come out of retirement to help,” he said.
“Even though they’re telling us they’re doing everything they can to hire … we haven’t seen any positive news,” he said.
“Every problem can be solved”: Doyle
Doyle says his health has improved and he is waiting for insurance approval for a new and expensive drug to manage his cholesterol.
He feels lucky to have made it, but fears something tragic will happen to someone else in the community.
“I mean, you’re playing with people’s lives,” he said.
Doyle says he is lucky to have survived the stroke and is calling on Eastern Health to make the right offers to the staff they are trying to recruit. (Rodney Doyle/Facebook)
Eastern Health says it was unaware of the situation described by Doyle.
“However, we are committed to working with the city and the area’s ambulance provider to provide safe and quality patient care to area residents,” it said in a statement.
Eastern Heath says it has no plans to permanently close the St. Lawrence emergency department and is trying to find more staff.
“Recruiting for physicians and nurses at US Memorial Health Center in St. Lawrence is ongoing to stabilize the workforce and have consistent services at the site,” the release said.
But it’s unclear when any relief will come, and Doyle has some advice for Eastern Health when it comes to hiring health staff.
“If you try hard enough, any problem can be solved… Make them the right proposals,” he said.
“One day someone may pay with their life… then [it’s] too little too late.”
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