Death at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre ER raises questions about capacity issues, wait room protocols

The death of a middle-aged man who spent about eight hours waiting for care at a Winnipeg emergency department has some patient advocates raising questions about what the hospital is doing to prevent similar incidents.

The Health Sciences Centre (HSC) has launched an investigation into the man's death, which happened at the hospital Tuesday morning. The man had arrived to the emergency department the night before, shortly after midnight.

The incident drew comparisons to the case of Brian Sinclair, whose death after spending 34 hours in the same waiting room 16 years ago led to an overhaul of how patients in ERs are triaged and monitored.

Vilko Zbogar, the lawyer who represented Sinclair's family, said while Sinclair's case showed some people may be more susceptible to being ignored because of factors like discrimination, the same problems can affect everyone.

"His legacy should have been that [this] would never, ever happen again," Zbogar said.

"That's what the changes that were put in place by the health authorities were meant to to accomplish. And it's quite disheartening to see … something like this happening again."

The last time a patient died while waiting for care at the emergency room happened in February 2023, in what was deemed a critical incident. A report into that death led to recommendations including further reviews into how to address backlogs and patient outflow challenges at the ER.

Dr. Shawn Young, HSC's chief operating officer, said at a news conference Tuesday the investigation would look at how frequently the man was reassessed after being initially triaged.

As per one of the procedural changes put in place after Sinclair's death, emergency department staff must communicate with everyone in the waiting room at certain time intervals.

Young said the man who died this week was triaged as a low-acuity patient, meaning he would have had to wait about 10 hours or more to be seen.

Zbogar said he would like to know whether those protocols were followed, as well as whether the patient's identity had anything to do with him not receiving the treatment he needed.

Laura Tamblyn Watts, CEO of the national seniors' advocacy group CanAge, said the incident raises questions about how the hospital assesses and monitors incoming patients.

"We have to understand, 'How does a person who goes in with a low acuity then end up dying in such a short period of time?'" she said. "Obviously something progressed very quickly that wasn't addressed, or he was misassessed."

Young said at the news conference the death happened as the hospital's emergency room was "well over capacity," though he added the number of patients wasn't abnormal.