Woman with multiple broken ribs has waited 6 days for surgery at Moncton hospital

It happened in the blink of an eye. Linda Cummings, 74, stepped out onto the front porch of her Hampton home to get a breath of fresh air. She slipped and fell on the frost-slicked steps, breaking four ribs and cracking four others.

She was sent to Saint John Regional Hospital and diagnosed with a "flail chest," a serious injury that left her chest wall destabilized and floating, and transferred to the Moncton Hospital for thoracic surgery. 

Six days later, Cummings is still awaiting surgery and an available ICU bed at the crowded, short-staffed Moncton hospital, where COVID-19 outbreaks have been declared in four units and 23 patients have tested positive for the virus as of Friday.

Cummings has been on a hydromorphone drip to manage the pain of the broken ribs as she awaits the surgery. 

But her son, Brian Cummings, is growing increasingly alarmed as each day comes and goes without a bed opening up for his mother.

"It's so frustrating to be sitting here waiting … knowing full well that there may be no end in sight here," he said in an interview Friday.

Cummings, a police officer in Miramichi, has been coming to the hospital daily to be with his mother, hoping every day to hear that her surgery can proceed.

On Friday morning, he asked the assistant surgeon what was the longest time he'd ever seen a flail chest patient wait before getting surgery.

"He said 'two days,' " Cummings said. "Well, we're on day six."

Cummings said the surgeon has also told him that "there's a window" within which the surgery should be done. If that window is missed, the ribs will start to heal … and connect themselves to the muscle tissue," leaving the patient in chronic pain.

"And in [the surgeon's] words, we're at that window right now."

Horizon Health Network said Friday that as of midnight Thursday night, there were just three of 23 ICU beds available at the Moncton Hospital.

Communications advisor Kris McDavid said he did not have the current occupancy rate for the COVID unit, which has 36 beds, but said that as of late Friday afternoon, 27 patients and six staff had tested positive for the virus.

He noted that 16 of 43 ICU beds at Saint John Regional Hospital are occupied. However, that hospital is not a good option for Cummings because of the type of surgery she requires.