Neglectful hospital care robbed Edmonton cancer patient of dignified death, daughter says

An Edmonton woman says her father was neglected and given insufficient medication for his pain in an Alberta hospital, while his family was not informed that he was near death.

Bridget Stirling's 71-year-old father, Ian Stirling, died on July 21 in a general medicine ward of the Edmonton's Royal Alexandra Hospital where he'd been admitted 16 days earlier.

His family would later learn that cancer had spread from his lungs into his liver.  A mass on his chest, beneath his collarbone, had grown to the size of a fist.

The family wasn't told that her father's condition was terminal until two days before his death, she says. Her father was robbed of his dignity while his family lost precious time to share a meaningful goodbye.

"Nobody told us he was with advanced cancer and that his liver and kidneys had failed and that he had days left to live," she said.

"We lost that time and we will never get it back."

Stirling said her father's time in hospital was a nightmare of failed communication. He fell through the cracks of a health-care system in crisis, she said.

She said it shouldn't take a family weeks to get their loved one adequate care or clear answers about a prognosis. 

She has filed an official complaint with Alberta Health Services detailing how her father's debilitating pain was treated for days with only Tylenol, and how he was found in soiled sheets. 

Medical experts say Stirling's complaint is an example of the lingering pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic on Alberta hospitals, the lack of access to timely end-of-life care and for the need for improved training to ensure medical staff inform patients and their families when death is near.

Stirling said one morning, after her father could no longer walk without help, the family found him lying dirty in his hospital bed. He had been unable to get to the washroom during the night, and it appeared he had been in that state for hours, she said.

"It was like no one was checking on him," she said. 

"I just want to know why nobody told us and why my dad got left in that kind of pain." 

An AHS spokesman would not comment on the specifics of this case due to patient privacy but said staff will meet with the Stirling family and the complaint will be "followed up on and managed as appropriate."