Toronto parents 'extremely frustrated' by 11-hour ER wait at SickKids for infant son’s allergic reaction
CTV
Vanessa and Janicije Karic's son had a bad allergic reaction to eggs. But, while they rushed their six-month-old son to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, they didn't see a doctor until about 11 hours later.
Vanessa and Janicije Karic's son had a bad allergic reaction to eggs. But, while they rushed their six-month-old son to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, they didn't see a doctor until about 11 hours later.
“It was scary. It was scary for the fact that we didn’t know how bad it could be. We didn’t know whether he was anaphylactic or not because this was his first time eating solid foods,” Vanessa Karic told CTV News Toronto's Sean Leathong in an interview.
They arrived to SickKids at around 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 25 and said they were told the wait time would be about four hours.
But, as they sat in the waiting room, the Karics said that time continually grew hour after hour, which they were keeping track of through an online app. They saw the wait time double to eight hours, then eventually hit more than 11 hours as the wait room filled with parents and their children.
“Parents losing patience, parents crying, parents getting angry,” the child’s father said. “It’s frustrating, very frustrating.”
The Karics finally saw a doctor for their son Lucius on Friday morning, at around 8 a.m.
“The first thing she said is, ‘I’m so sorry. I started my shift at 4 a.m. and there’s around 58, 60 patients here and I’m all alone,” he recalled.
