Businessman helps family of man in health-care limbo
Air ambulance couldn't transfer seriously injured man from Corner Brook to St. John’s
Dave Callahan would give anything not to be right in his belief that basing the province’s air ambulance service in St. John’s will be detrimental to health care in other parts of the province.
However, he said a situation on the west coast this week is proving he is right.
A young man seriously injured in an accident was still at Western Memorial Regional Hospital in Corner Brook on Thursday, May 2, waiting to be transferred to St. John’s for liver surgery that can’t be performed in Corner Brook.
The province’s air ambulances were grounded in St. John’s because of weather and the man, 31, had been deemed unstable to travel by road ambulance.
Callahan, owner of the Callahan Group of Companies in St. George’s, has never met the man or his family, but became aware of his situation when he was contacted by the man’s aunt on Wednesday, May 1. Her nephew had been waiting three days to be moved to St. John’s and she knew Callahan has been an advocate for health care.
He immediately tried to help.
“I don’t see this being different than it’s my son lying in that hospital bed, because who knows, one day it could be and the exact same situation would present itself,” he said.
Callahan spent most of Wednesday trying to get something arranged for the man.
That included contacting Progressive Conservative Leader Tony Wakeham, the MHA for Stephenville-port au Port.
Callahan said Wakeham brought the issue to the attention of Health Minister Tom Osborne in the House of Assembly.
Callahan also contacted EVAS Air, which operates an air ambulance service in Gander, and asked if they couldn’t fly into St. John’s could they take the man as far as Clarenville, where he could be taken by road the rest of the way.
He said EVAS was willing and as discussions continued, he saw the news that a PAL airplane had gone off the runway in St. John’s. The cause of the accident has not been released, but Callahan believes it was due to the weather.
He knew then that St. John’s would not be an option for the man and contacted EVAS again to ask if it would be possible to take a qualified nurse from Gander, pick the man up in Deer Lake and take him to Halifax.
That’s the option he had presented to Osborne and was later told had been approved.
The situation was so frustrating to Callahan that he described what was happening in a post and later a video on Facebook. Some of his discussion centred on the need for a better air ambulance service.
The service is under review and Callahan has advocated against the “mindless plan” the province has that will see the air ambulances located in St. John’s.
“They’re going to start the service at the destination,” he said.
He says that makes no sense, and this situation proves it’s needed elsewhere.
Fog in St. John’s is pretty much a daily event, and health-care officials are playing games with health care in western Newfoundland, he said.
“The state or our health care has been allowed to fall in the toilet, and that is just not acceptable.”
Callahan’s frustrations increased on Thursday morning when he learned the man would not be going to Halifax and would be transferred to St. John’s by road ambulance. The man’s father told him the decision was made by an official with the Western Zone of NL Health Services.
That option had been deemed unsafe on Monday, but the family was told the man was now stabilized.
Late Thursday afternoon, Callahan said the man had been transferred by road ambulance to St. John’s.
Wakeham said part of the challenge has been a lack of communication with the man’s family.
“I think the family hasn’t been kept up to date or up to speed, if you will, on what’s been happening in terms of the transportation of their son,” said Wakeham.
Wakeham told The Telegram that Osborne gave the approval to move the man to Halifax if that was necessary.
“So, then the arrangements were left to the medical team in Corner Brook to decide on the options they would consider,” said Wakeham.
He said the decision to send him by ground ambulance comes down to the medical team’s assessment of the man’s physical condition at any one time.
“Right now, they are telling the family that their son is stable. I can’t argue with the medical team, but yesterday the family were being told that their son wasn’t stable to go on a road ambulance. So, you can understand the frustration on the family’s part, and any family’s part, when you find your family member that needs transportation to a tertiary care centre and it’s not able to happen on a timely basis,” said Wakeham.
He said he told the health authority late Thursday morning that it must communicate with the family.
“Families need to be kept in the loop at all times and we need to have a better system in place so decisions around transportation can be made quicker and should always be made with the family involved in those decisions and fully aware of everything that’s happening,” he said.
“Because the decisions on transportation and where you go or what you do is usually left up with the medical team. If the medical team are making decisions that are impacting their son, then the family should be in the middle of those decisions.”
Wakeham said weather also plays a critical factor and that was a challenge in St. John’s for the last couple of days.
When it comes to the review of the service, Wakeham said predetermining locations shouldn’t already have happened. He said the province should be saying it wants to revamp the air ambulance program and ask how that should be done to make the best use of aircraft it has, if it needs additional aircraft or flight teams, and how to locate them strategically throughout the province so there may be different options.
The Telegram couldn't contact Osborne, as he was the House of Assembly on Thursday.
In an email, the Department of Health and Community Services stated it cannot speak about individual cases due to privacy reasons.
“However, all medical decisions related to whether or not a patient travels within the province or out of province for health care are clinical decisions made at the discretion of the medical staff,” it said.
These decisions, it said, may be based on multiple factors, including weather, available resources such as air ambulances that may be in use transporting other patients, and capacity to accept patients at destination health-care facilities.