Winnipeg hospital death to be investigated as critical incident

The recent death of a man waiting for care in a Winnipeg hospital’s emergency department is being investigated as a critical incident.

Shared Health confirmed the decision with CTV News Winnipeg on Wednesday. a critical incident will examine the circumstances surrounding the death and develop plans to prevent future incidents from happening.

It comes after a middle-aged man was brought to the Health Sciences Centre by ambulance shortly after midnight, assessed as a low-acuity patient, triaged, and told to wait in the waiting room and tell staff if his condition changed.

The man was reassessed in the waiting room, but at approximately 8 a.m., his condition worsened significantly. He was brought to a hospital room for resuscitation but died.

Uzoma Asagwara told reporters Wednesday the death was “heartbreaking,” and the province is looking for answers.

“We never want to see an incident like this happen in our health-care system, certainly not in our emergency rooms,” they said.

Asagwara said the NDP has made efforts to try and improve wait times in the province’s health-care system but knows there is much more work to be done.

“There’s more we need to learn from this devastating loss, and from folks on the front line and in the system, on the further steps we need to take,” they said.

“It’s going to take us time to build the capacity that we are continuing to invest and create in the system. These are challenges that are difficult, but need to be addressed.”

The Manitoba Nurses’ Union said the incident should serve as a wake-up call for what nurses are dealing with.

“These critical failures in our health-care system are not isolated; they are symptoms of a system stretched beyond its limits,” Darlene Jackson said in a statement.

Jackson said the HSC’s leadership and the province’s health department need to find out the root causes of the failure and find solutions.

“These critical failures in our health-care system are not isolated; they are symptoms of a system stretched beyond its limits,” Jackson said.