Child with pneumonia had to wait 40 hours for bed

Whilst battling Pneumonia, A child had to wait about 40 hours in an Ontario emergency room. The mother of the child claimed that on reaching the ER, they could not find a bed for the child and had to make a makeshift one out of chairs.

Jasmine, the mother, called 911 at around 2:30 am after her daughter kept throwing up and had a high fever.

She, alongside her daughter, was then taken to the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, a newly built medical facility that claimed to be operating over capacity when the child arrived.

Jasmine claimed that a doctor attended to her daughter within an hour of arriving at the hospital, and ordered blood work and X-rays for the child.

The reports indicated that the child had pneumonia, and had to stay at the hospital overnight. In the early hours of the morning, the four-year-old was shifted to the waiting room from the examination area, where they had to stay for the next four to five hours.

Jasmine stated that she had to make a bed out of the waiting area chairs for her daughter.

“For the whole time that I was there, my heart was in my hands honestly. It’s not on the doctors. It’s not on the nurses. If I was working that job I would quit, ” noted the mother, adding that a large number of the workforce seemed to be medical students.

“She got tired and was really sleepy. We had nowhere to lie down so I had to use two chairs and some blankets and make a bed for her, ” she said, speaking to media outlets. The mother did, however, iterate that a nurse was tending to her daughter while in the waiting room.

When a hospital employee took notice of the sick child, she was shifted to a shared room with a teenager, which had a reclining chair for each of the patients. At this point, the family had to wait 5 hours to get a room, and the 4-year-old’s oxygen levels had dropped by then. Meanwhile, more bloodwork results came and indicated that the child was also positive for RSV.

“They had to put a mask on her face. It’s while we were in that room the test came back that she is positive for RSV, ” said the worried mother.

It was after the diagnosis, according to the mother, the child was shifted to a bed in the emergency department.

At around 6 pm, after about 40 hours in the ER, the child was finally transferred to a bed in the general ward of the hospital.

The influx of RSV and Covid-19, in addition to the flu epidemic, has gripped Healthcare in Canada. Children’s hospitals are the worst affected by the surge in respiratory diseases, with many cancelling scheduled surgeries to tend to urgent care patients while functioning over capacity.

Ontario, as a whole, currently has 112 beds for kids requiring intensive care. Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, where the child was taken, in a statement just a day after the ordeal revealed that its ICU census has been at least 127 per cent above capacity. Media reports suggest that Ontario patients, on average, had to wait about 21.3 hours in the ER to be admitted in September.