Mary Lou Murphy dedicated her life to helping others.
“The passion for people is what Mary Lou had. Mary Lou wanted to love and help everyone,” Andrew Grimeau said of Murphy, who worked as a unit clerk at Fraser Health rehab centre near Abbotsford Regional Hospital.
Loved ones said Murphy’s fatal mistake was trusting Fraser Health to take care of one of their own.
The 56-year-old went to Abbotsford Regional Hospital on Jan. 30 sweating profusely and in considerable pain.
After a five-hour wait she was given a shot of morphine and sent home.
“She had been treated in the community for muscular spasm with the appropriate medications,” Fraser Health Medicine Vice President Dr. Roy Morton said. “That was what the discharge diagnosis was from the emergency room.”
Grimeau says he visited her the next day at home and knew it was something much worse.
Murphy died sometime that night.
“All they’re doing in that hospital is diagnosing off of symptoms without research, without looking into what’s actually going on,” Grimeau said.
WATCH: Abbotsford family demands answers in death of three-year-old daughter
The family of Nimrat Gill has similar concerns.
The three-old died during a second trip to Abbotsford Regional Hospital after being told to treat a fever at home with Tylenol.
A doctor’s report shows the child might have died of cardiac arrest stemming from pneumonia and septic shock.
The two deaths occurred one week apart.
“What we’re hoping is that these were isolated incidents that happened to be closely linked in time only. And that’s why we do a review,” Morton said.
Grimeau is calling for an independent review, saying he doesn’t have faith in the health authority to properly diagnose itself.
“I don’t think Fraser Health should be investigating,” he said.
– With files from John Hua