nova scotia, just to name a few). this person had been waiting for 33 (!!) hours. long waits in emergency rooms is old news, for sure. in fact, grace hospital has been in the press a lot — one story recently reported patients waiting in hallways for care for upwards of a week. wtf.
and this is just what makes it into the papers. consider for a moment the trauma experienced every day that’s unreported, that doesn’t make it further than a story told to a funeral home director or that people carry with them in their hearts and on their shoulders because they feel powerless to do otherwise.
that people are dying while waiting in places they went to for care is in itself astonishing, terrifying and completely nonsensical. but what’s even more bananas is how those in positions to make change continue to respond and react.
when asked to comment on the death of the grace hospital patient, darlene jackson, president of the manitoba nurses union, said that she thought it “was a terrible, terrible consequence of our critical nursing shortage and the workloads that nurses are working under.”
what has the healthcare system done for you lately?
it’s a version of the same pat response used every time something devastating happens in healthcare — everyone is overworked, understaffed, overwhelmed and underfunded. legitimate reasons all of them, but it’s what comes next that bears mentioning: nothing. nothing ever comes next. no foot is put down. beyond suggestions, commiserations and apologies, there’s never any action that can be counted on. and sure, there have been many commitments made to healthcare funding and promises of change over the last year or so, and yet, find me one person who, when asked what the healthcare system has done for them lately, will lean back in their cosy chair with a cosy smile and, with a warm hand on their heart, start rhyming off platitudes of gratitude and thanks that finally, all the promises have come true.
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