As Saskatchewan continues to struggle with health-care capacity across the province, one immunocompromised palliative care cancer patient was left on a stretcher in a Saskatoon hospital for four days.
Lorraine Kendel, a Saskatoon resident, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2023 and has been undergoing chemotherapy. Her husband, Dennis, is a former physician and luckily has been able to help his wife with her supportive care at home.
“(Chemotherapy) has slowed the progress of the disease, but she is getting progressively weaker and more debilitated week to week,” Dennis said.
Dennis said Lorraine was registered with palliative home care services about six weeks ago.
“We haven’t had to use that yet, but it is an excellent service available if we need it.”
He said a recent drop in Lorraine’s cell count on Tuesday changed everything, with Lorraine requiring hospitalization.
With the constant strain in Saskatchewan’s health care system, Kendel said he was worried.
Lorraine is also at a high risk of lethal infection, adding to the concern. Kendel said he took Lorraine to St. Paul’s Hospital emergency room, saying he was told that Lorraine would get transferred to Royal University Hospital’s medical oncology unit once an opening occurred.
“They said there were no beds available,” Dennis said in a phone interview, unable and unwilling to leave his wife’s side.
Because Lorraine is immunocompromised, doctors managed to find her a closed treatment room in the St. Paul’s Hospital emergency department. She also received a bed on Friday.
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“As you walk through the hallways here at St. Paul’s emergency department there is stretcher after stretcher lined up along the walls… and most of the people in them look pretty ill.”
Kendel said nursing staff have told him that about 40 per cent of the people on stretchers in those hallways are waiting to be admitted.
He said this was a stressful environment for health care staff trying to take care of patients, and a very uncomfortable setting for patients, noting there was little to no privacy.
That being said, Dennis wanted to thank the staff at the hospital for doing what they could.
“I just want to commend the staff at the emergency department here, they are giving excellent care to her, but this isn’t the place she really needs to be.”
He spoke about his previous experience being part of the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council and offered his insight into what he feels needs to be addressed in the health care system.
“There is no doubt we are lacking adequate capacity.”
He suggested more funding is needed to create that capacity, but that this also requires staff to care for this extra capacity.
“We just don’t have enough beds or staff.”
Problems within the health care system in Saskatchewan have been ongoing for years now, issues have been raised by Saskatchewan’s provincial auditor, nurses have rallied against the worsening conditions, the Saskatchewan Health Authority announced a capacity plan for hospitals, and emergency rooms have closed.
The Saskatchewan Health (SHA) Authority sent a statement saying that it takes patient care and privacy seriously.
It said hallway beds in emergency departments get eliminated whenever possible, but capacity pressures can ebb and flow.
“We acknowledge there has been a recent increase in volume and acuity presenting to our emergency departments and inpatient wards in Saskatoon. Ongoing work to address emergency room flow has focused on better utilization of recliners and chairs for patients with lower acuity, rather than everyone requiring a stretcher, helping to eliminate use of hallway beds,” SHA said.
“Progress also continues to be made on achieving the initiatives identified in the Saskatoon Capacity Pressure Action Plan. As we continue to hire and onboard the staffing complement identified in the plan, improve patient flow and make enhancements to more appropriately treat patients in the community, we will see less pressure in our acute care and emergency department settings.”
SHA said this will take time, but that it has seen improvements to acute care capacity.
Tracy Zambory with the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses weighed in on the matter, saying this has been an ongoing issue at St. Paul’s Hospital for years.
Zambory disagreed with the SHA, saying the Saskatoon Capacity Pressure Action Plan has done nothing.
“In fact, the conditions have gotten worse,” Zambory said.
She said illnesses like COVID-19 still exist, and patients who are immunocompromised like Lorraine can’t be somewhere there are outbreaks.
“It’s unfortunate, it’s absolutely horrible that she’s been having to go through this kind of waiting. This tells us loud and clear that we are nowhere near done doing what needs to happen in this province to make sure these kinds of situations in our health care don’t occur.”
She called the situation ridiculous, saying there have been years of conversations and potential plans around addressing capacity issues in Saskatchewan hospitals.
“It’s devastating for registered nurses because they see that safe patient care is absolutely being compromised,” she said. “How can it not be?”
“This absolutely shouldn’t be happening, but here we are.”
Zambory pointed to solutions like creating a nursing task force, incentivizing registered nurses to stay and giving grads full-time positioning.
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