The Editor,
I work in the community social services sector and for the past several months, I've been supporting one of my clients at Royal Columbian Hospital and have seen the current hallway medicine model. (Fortunately, the client I'm supporting has his own private room due to the fact that he contracted an infectious disease while he was in Royal Colombian Hospital - but that's a story for a different day.)
The nurses and doctors at RCH are doing the best they can given the conditions the government has forced them to work under but today I saw something that is causing me to speak out. While I was supporting my client, an oncologist came to see a patient in the hallway outside my client's room and broke the news that he had cancer throughout his body and that there were very few treatment options. This man in the hallway did not have a privacy screen nor was any effort made to take this man into a private area where he could be given the news that no one ever wants to get.
Shortly after this, I witnessed a grown man soil himself and urinate on the floor while he waited to use the one public bathroom on the floor as he had a bed in the hallway and did not have access to a private bathroom. This man then had to wait on his bed in the hallway in his soiled hospital gown until a nurse could be tracked down to get him a clean one.
Patients' privacy and dignity is suffering under this BC Liberal government and nothing is being done to rectify the situation. There is money for bonuses at TransLink and ICBC, as well as ridiculous pensions for BC Ferry executives and money for the smart meter program and a leaky roof for BC Place, but there is no money for a person to be taken into a private room to be given the worst possible news.
Premier Christy Clark is so focused on holding together her "free enterprise coalition" and acting like a conservative that she has forgotten her promise to put B.C. families first.
The Clark government has one year left in its mandate and it's time the needs of B.C. families and, more importantly, patients were made a priority.
Rob Bottos, Coquitlam
