Couple forced to wait 12+ hours at Surrey Memorial Hospital ER after head injury

A Lower Mainland couple is sharing their frustrating, first-hand experience in the emergency room at the beleaguered Surrey Memorial Hospital (SMH), just days after ER doctors penned a letter to the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) about deteriorating conditions at the facility.

Doug, who doesn’t want his last name published, says he rushed his fiancée to the hospital last week after she fell. He says after checking ER wait times online, they went to SMH because it only showed a 3.5-hour wait.

“All told, before we saw a doctor, it was 12.5 hours,” he told 1130 NewsRadio Vancouver. “It was pretty chaotic. There was nobody monitoring the line, people were barging in the line.”

He says they waited in three different waiting areas before seeing a physician. That exchange, he explains, lasted a maximum of 10 minutes.

“I felt a sense of urgency from the doctor that he needed to carry on to see other people because his hand was almost on the door trying to make his escape after he finished talking with us,” Doug explained.

“It was feeling kind of rushed. I actually tried to thank the doctor on my fiancée’s behalf, but he didn’t hear me because he was already rushing out the door.”

This week’s letter from ER doctors at Surrey Memorial Hospital described an untenable situation and described a “toxic work environment” that was discouraging physicians from showing up to work. Doug doesn’t blame frontline health-care workers for what he describes as an “inhumane” situation. But he added some patients in the ER were crying, and others left the hospital before receiving help.

“It just felt like we were forgotten about almost.”

After being assessed by the doctor, Doug says they were told his fiancée had a concussion and they were cleared to leave.

However, the experience has left the pair angry.

“As the hours go on before you actually see the doctor … it gets so frustrating because you’re physically tired. We showed up in the afternoon and we didn’t actually see somebody until the next day in the early morning hours. I mean, you’re physically exhausted. It’s frustrating to see the system so broken like it is. It’s really quite sad.”

Doug says a year ago he took his daughter to a different hospital and points out the experience was similar but he believes wait times are getting longer.

“We waited eight or nine hours before seeing a doctor and this is all so impersonalized. I’d like to see government officials be sitting and waiting this long to see how truly inconvenient and frustrating this whole process is.”

He doesn’t have a solution but says he would be open to a “pay for service” system.

“Where is the humanity in all this? We’re in a modern society. If the doctors and nurses have a strategy to make things better, they should be listened to. The wait times are intolerable. Everyone was very frustrated in that room… and you can’t do anything to help your loved one that’s beside you, that’s not acceptable.”

Doug has a warning to anyone who needs to seek emergency care.

“When something happens next time, are you going to go to the hospital? Because you can’t depend on being seen in a reasonable amount of time. Are we going ahead to maybe waiting 24 hours? Is that acceptable?” he asked.

“Like, I kept on running out to feed the parking — should there be a multi-day rate so you can at least not have to leave your prime spot in the ER? It’s really broken.”

Fraser Health explains priority care may increase wait times

Fraser Health sent 1130 NewsRadio a statement and acknowledged how challenging waits are for patients. It said it is “deeply committed” to the well-being of its patients.

“Patients are always prioritized by how severely ill they are when they present to the Emergency Department. People with life-threatening health issues are seen first, which may increase wait times for patients whose care issues are not life-threatening.”

The FHA says amid a staffing crunch, more people have been hired.

“Since July 2023 we posted 575 net new positions for the Surrey Memorial Hospital and Surrey communities, including pediatric emergency, emergency clinical staff, support services and more. Of the 575 new positions, 364 have been filled, including 24 out of 27 new pediatric emergency positions.”

Eby, Dix say gov’t is fixing B.C. health-care problems

At a Tuesday news conference, both Premier David Eby and Health Minister Adrian Dix were pressed about the health-care challenges south of the Fraser River.

They admitted there’s still a lot of work to be done and both used the topic as a way to attack BC Conservative Leader John Rustad.

“Surrey has been neglected for a generation on so many fronts,” said Eby. “What I can tell you is we’re fixing that, making sure the people of Surrey get the investment and the services that they deserve which are long overdue.”

Eby pointed to the construction of a new facility in Surrey that would include 168 new hospital beds and a second emergency room department with a few dozen treatment spaces.

“We have big challenges, there’s no question. I know we’re headed in the right direction, and I also know those emergency room doctors are under huge pressure. There are significant demands. Surrey is growing so quickly. We added 300,000 people to our health-care plan over the last two years in this province. All those people need care, including in emergency rooms and a lot of those folks are located south of the Fraser, and particularly in Surrey,” said Eby.