A 68-year-old patient has spent three weeks so far at Royal Columbian Hospital recovering from major surgery in a hallway – one of dozens of patients stacked in the halls at that hospital alone.
Gerrit Zwiep is trying to remain in good spirits as his foot heals with three pins to stabilize his fractured bones, but says it’s hard because he’s underneath a nurse’s call bell and right next to a construction site for a new shower.
“They move the beds through the hallways and it’s insanity. They’re fixing the shower. They’re banging away,” he told CTV News, adding that he can’t sleep and is worried that his wound will become more infected if exposed to the bustle of the hallways.
“How can you expect to get better like this?” he asked.
The hospital has apologized to Zwiep, and explained that he has been placed in the hallway because he was the most stable of the patients and it was the area where he could still be in contact with his care team, said Judith Hockney, Royal Columbian’s executive director.
The hospital confirmed there are 28 patients in hallways right now, with 42 beds in alternate locations including hallways. That’s down from 75 last year.
“Any time you have a patient in the hallway, that’s difficult,” Hockney said. “Do I wish we had more rooms? Yes. Everyone wishes they’re in a room. It’s unfortunate that we have to put them in hallways."
Zwiep was admitted Jan. 6 with Charcot’s foot, which is a complication related to diabetes where a foot becomes numb, and the bones weaken and break. He also suffered a three-centimetre cut to the base of his foot.
Doctors thought they would have to amputate Zwiep’s foot but managed to save it by inserting three pins into the foot and lower leg. The surgery, Zwiep said, was miraculous, as is the nursing care – but recovery is another story. While he had one night in a private room, soon he was moved to a four-person room, and then by Jan. 20, the hospital placed him in the hallway.
“They said we need your space and I am out in the hall,” he said.
Photos show the hall is only about twice as wide as each bed, which means a tight squeeze when nurses move beds down the hallway. He has some privacy with a screen, but that doesn’t block the noise from the construction of a shower or the nurse’s bell.
One of the other six patients in that hallway said she has trouble getting wheelchairs and commodes. Marion Albert, 69, who is recovering after a hip replacement, said she was born in Royal Columbian Hospital and has never seen it in such a sorry state.
“It’s like an obstacle course. I don’t know how someone hasn’t been knocked over or killed. It’s a traffic jam,” she said.
Fraser Health blamed the crowding on flu season, which has more people coming to the hospital for more serious problems than other times of year.
But this is more than a seasonal problem, said Christine Sorenson of the B.C. Nurses Union.
“We’re seeing this, it’s a pervasive problem across the province,” Sorenson said, adding that she had seen overcrowding in hospitals in Abbotsford and Prince George recently.
Part of the space crunch could be because Royal Columbian has shut down a ward because of a C. difficile outbreak, she said.
Fraser Health, which operates most hospitals east of Burnaby and Surrey in the Lower Mainland did not respond to questions about how many patients were in the hallways throughout their region.
B.C.’s Minister of Health says he thinks that housing patients in hallways is “unacceptable.”
However Terry Lake urged patience because Fraser Health is putting into place a series of reforms from a top-level review which added $60 million to the budget over 2 years, hoping to find ways the health authority could become more efficient.
“Real action is going through. It does take time,” he said.
Zwiep said it’s clear the provincial government should be spending more resources on health care, not, for example, the Site C hydroelectric dam.
“I’m going to get choked up,” he said. “Christy Clark is spending hundreds of millions on a bloody dam. Look at this place!”
