A B.C. man is speaking out after he says his brother was left waiting seven hours overnight with a broken hip for an ambulance.
Bill, who asked not to use his last name because his brother wishes to remain anonymous, said the incident happened in Langley on Tuesday.
His 63-year-old brother, who suffers from multiple health issues including a past stroke and diabetes serious enough that he’d had his right leg amputated, called his daughter home due to excruciating pain in his hip, he said.
When efforts to treat the pain with over-the-counter medication failed, she called 911 around midnight.
“The pain wasn’t going away, it was getting worse,” he said.
After waiting about two and a half hours and no sign of an ambulance, Bill said his niece called for help again.
“They said he wasn’t really a priority,” he said.
“Her frustration and anger level was right up there too, and the worry for her dad. That he was in excruciating pain and nothing was working, and her waiting and waiting and waiting.”
The ambulance eventually showed up around 7 a.m., and took Bill’s brother to Langley Memorial Hospital.
Upon admission he learned he had a broken hip, as well as a blockage in the artery behind his right knee.
“If they had have got to him sooner … he would not be sitting there or laying there at risk of part of the blockage breaking off. It could have broken off and gone right to his heart and killed him,” he said.
Global News reached out to the BC Ambulance Service for comment, but did not receive a response by deadline.
The incident is the latest in a string of ambulance delay stories from British Columbians, and the union representing paramedics says despite investments from the province over the last year, things haven’t improved much.
“These are tragic situations that are affecting patient care, any situation where we somebody in their time of need not getting a timely ambulance to treat and transport them to hospital is unacceptable,” Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. president Tory Clifford said.
“Unfortunately we are seeing that more and more across the province, not only in the Lower Mainland.”
Bill stressed that he had no problem with the quality of care offered by the paramedics, doctors and nurses who have been treating his brother.
But he said the system they are working in is broken.
“It has been for a while. There’s not enough paramedics. Priority is given to other people, I understand triaging and all that,” he said.
“John Horgan’s gotta stop pointing the finger at the federal government and fix the system here.”
Asked about the case Friday, Premier John Horgan acknowledged there was work to do.
“In the long term, we need to build out the system further,” he said, adding that the province was looking at ways that paramedics and firefighters could work together.
“Firefighters, many of whom have the same level of training as paramedics, often times get to sites earlier than paramedics because of the number, quite frankly of firefighters in communities around the province, so we’re looking at ways to find more collaboration and I think that will ease the strain in the short term.”
That likely won’t be enough, according to Clifford who said the system needs an “infusion” of cash.
He said the ambulance service needs significant efforts on retention and recruitment both to ensure all ambulances available are actually staffed, and to protect overworked staff on the ground from burnout and mental health crises.
Whatever the province does, Bill said it needs to get moving quickly to prevent others from suffering in pain like his brother.
“Nothing that you’re doing is working,” he said.