Stranded and dying: B.C. cancer patient’s family calls for improvements to ferry service
CTV
Gracie MacDonald snapped a photo of her brother on a sailing boat a Good Samaritan was using to take them from Denman Island to the closest hospital on Vancouver Island never suspecting it would be the last image of his life.
Gracie MacDonald snapped a photo of her brother on a sailing boat a Good Samaritan was using to take them from Denman Island to the closest hospital on Vancouver Island never suspecting it would be the last image of his life.
He died hours later at North Island Hospital Comox Valley.
Andy MacDonald was terminally ill with cancer but hadn’t expected to succumb within months of his surprise diagnosis, and none of the family had anticipated it would be a scramble to get him to the hospital after the cable ferry broke down yet again last month.
“They were very apologetic and said there was nothing they could do to help us,” said his sister. “When we got off the sailboat, it was bad and my husband was pretty much carrying him and he was crying and there was lots of blood and it was awful.”
BC Ferries spokesperson, Ritinder Matthew, told CTV News MacDonald should’ve approached ground crews at the Bayes Sound Connector for help rather than reaching out to customer service representatives, going on to downplay the service disruptions.
“It’s an efficient vessel and it's designed to sail in a variety of different conditions,” she said. “We've seen some considerable improvements to this vessel's reliability and over the past year we've actually reduced mechanical-related cancellations by 40 per cent and over 99 per cent of the sailings have not been cancelled.”
BC Ferries has a number of advisory committees to liaise between the company and residents of the Gulf Islands, and the chair of the Hornby-Denman Island committee confirmed MacDonald’s assertions that the cable ferry breaks down frequently and at a higher rate than conventional vessels.
