Yellow Fever
December 9th, 2011, 06:32 AM
Collapsed woman in Alberta hospital parking lot forced to wait for ambulance
AHS questions why staff called ambulance but didn’t go help
By Matt McClure, Postmedia News December 8, 2011 9:07 PM
CALGARY — The province’s health authority is investigating an incident at a Lethbridge hospital where staff called an ambulance instead of dispatching medical personnel from inside the facility last week after a woman keeled over from an apparent heart attack near the main entrance.
Witness Tony Stephan says 15 minutes elapsed and the woman turned blue before paramedics arrived and took the patient about 200 metres by ambulance to the emergency ward at Chinook Regional Hospital.
“It was like an eternity waiting for help to come,” Stephan said. “If I’d known it was going to be that long, I would have grabbed some other passersby and we would have carried her in ourselves.”
While arriving at the hospital to visit his ailing father last Friday, Stephan said he spotted a woman in her 50s with a purse and a bouquet of flowers collapse near a curb in the parking lot.
While two women rushed to her aid, he ran inside and asked a receptionist to send staff from the adjacent ER to rescue the woman.
“She said I’ll look after it, so I ran back to the scene, where a crowd had gathered and a passerby had started to give artificial respiration,” Stephan said. “I told them the staff was coming from the hospital, but then we waited and we waited and we waited and nobody came.”
After rushing back to the hospital to appeal again for help, Stephan said three security guards arrived to control the crowd and a peace officer showed up and began performing CPR......
Read more: http://www.canada.com/Collapsed+woman+Alberta+hospital+parking+forced+wait+ambulance/5833456/story.html#ixzz1g0qOp9mg
AHS questions why staff called ambulance but didn’t go help
By Matt McClure, Postmedia News December 8, 2011 9:07 PM
CALGARY — The province’s health authority is investigating an incident at a Lethbridge hospital where staff called an ambulance instead of dispatching medical personnel from inside the facility last week after a woman keeled over from an apparent heart attack near the main entrance.
Witness Tony Stephan says 15 minutes elapsed and the woman turned blue before paramedics arrived and took the patient about 200 metres by ambulance to the emergency ward at Chinook Regional Hospital.
“It was like an eternity waiting for help to come,” Stephan said. “If I’d known it was going to be that long, I would have grabbed some other passersby and we would have carried her in ourselves.”
While arriving at the hospital to visit his ailing father last Friday, Stephan said he spotted a woman in her 50s with a purse and a bouquet of flowers collapse near a curb in the parking lot.
While two women rushed to her aid, he ran inside and asked a receptionist to send staff from the adjacent ER to rescue the woman.
“She said I’ll look after it, so I ran back to the scene, where a crowd had gathered and a passerby had started to give artificial respiration,” Stephan said. “I told them the staff was coming from the hospital, but then we waited and we waited and we waited and nobody came.”
After rushing back to the hospital to appeal again for help, Stephan said three security guards arrived to control the crowd and a peace officer showed up and began performing CPR......
Read more: http://www.canada.com/Collapsed+woman+Alberta+hospital+parking+forced+wait+ambulance/5833456/story.html#ixzz1g0qOp9mg