Witness to Edmundston ER death calls N.B. emergency care situation 'catastrophic'

A woman who witnessed the death of a man in the Edmundston hospital's emergency department waiting room earlier this week is denouncing the health-care situation.

"It is catastrophic what is happening in our [ERs]," Suzanne Ducas said in French.

A man in his 70s died in the waiting room of the Edmundston Regional Hospital's emergency department Wednesday, when the ER had a "high level of traffic and long wait times," but the Vitalité Health Network has said it does not believe there's any connection.

This marks the fourth death of a patient waiting for care in a New Brunswick hospital ER since July.

Ducas says she visited the Edmundston ER with her daughter, who had an injured foot, on Wednesday.

According to her, the man had been in the waiting room for several hours when someone shouted, "The gentleman is not well."

"I went to the person — because I have training as an attendant — and the gentleman was white and really not well," said Ducas.

Then a woman shouted, "code blue," and staff tried to resuscitate the man, she said.

The day before, Ducas had gone to the emergency room with her daughter and says she was told there would be an 18-hour wait. A nurse apologized for the situation, she said.

"I have the impression that there is too little staff, people are overwhelmed, resources are insufficient."

A Vitalité review of the patient's death is underway.

But the patient was triaged, monitored and cared for according to established protocols, according to Dr. France Desrosiers, president and chief executive officer of the regional health authority.

His condition was deemed stable during triage, she said in a statement Thursday.

"At this point in time, no cause-and-effect relationship between the level of traffic and the death has been established," Desrosiers said.