Woman says she had to wait for ER to open as husband had seizure

A Prince Rupert woman says emergency room closures plaguing the British Columbia port city forced her to make an "impossible" choice when her husband had a severe epileptic seizure early Monday morning.

Tish Losier says she awoke around 6 a.m. to her husband, Joe Budniksy, shaking in bed and called 911. Budnisky was diagnosed with epilepsy last year and takes medication for it daily.

But when the ambulance arrived, Losier says paramedics advised her it would be faster to wait for the Prince Rupert Regional Hospital's emergency department to open at 8 a.m. rather than make the 140-kilometre drive to the nearest open hospital in Terrace. 

She agreed, and they drove to the Prince Rupert hospital to wait.

"It was absolutely terrifying. He couldn't get the medicine that he needed," Losier told CBC News in an interview on Tuesday.

"The seizures were completely at their own free will at that point. There's nothing that anybody could do but let him have these seizures and wait until the ER opened up."

B.C. Emergency Health Services declined to comment on the specific case, citing privacy, but confirmed receiving a call matching Losier's description shortly after 6 a.m.

Paramedics "provided care to and stayed with the patient until they were transferred to the care of Prince Rupert Hospital's emergency department," spokesperson Bowen Osoko wrote in an email Wednesday.

Losier and Budnisky's experience comes a week after Northern Health confirmed a shortage of doctors has forced Prince Rupert's only hospital to close its emergency department overnight several times this month alone. 

And after what she described as a "horrifying" experience at the crowded hospital when Budnisky finally received care, Losier is questioning whether she made the right call.

"I wish with my whole soul that we had gone to Terrace this morning," she wrote in a social media post from the hospital late Monday night. 

Losier says when the emergency room opened, staff gave her husband pain medication and X-rays, and sent him home shortly after.

"He is usually admitted, at least overnight, when he has episodes like this," said Losier. "But a nurse told me that they didn't have enough beds and they got completely swamped as soon as the ER opened up."

The 26-bed hospital is often over-capacity and caring for 30 patients at a time, according to Julia Pemberton, Northern Health's northwest senior operations officer.