A man whose back pain is so bad he can’t stand or sit for more than three minutes smokes that he had to lie on the dirty floor of Saint-Hyacinthe’s emergency room after being refused bedding.
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“It’s a horror story to be treated like that,” says Érick Guy, still traumatized. An animal would be treated better! »
The 50-year-old teacher has lived with back pain since falling on the ice at school in 2012. Sorelois has been bedridden and not paralyzed since last April, but the pain prevents him from standing or sitting for more than three minutes.
Unbearable pain
“When I get up or sit down, the meter goes off. It’s a 10 out of 10 pain. It’s unbearable,” he says.
On the morning of June 17, Mr Guy went to the emergency room at Saint-Hyacinthe hospital hoping to see a specialist. Upon arrival, his wife inquired to get a stretcher quickly.
“We were told to go to the ER with a wheelchair and they would get me a stretcher,” says the man.
However, when he arrived he had neither a stretcher nor a bed available, he regrets, adding that the emergency room is deserted.
“I told the security guard I was in terrible pain and to lie down on the floor. I cried. »
According to the patient, the triage nurse insisted that he remain in a wheelchair. The situation then escalated, he says.
“I lay on the floor in pain and misery, writhing in pain, and everyone started yelling at me! They told me to get up but I couldn’t even feel my right leg it was so numb. »
Mr Guy even says he was threatened with deportation for being a “hostile patient”.
“Like a Wounded Animal”
The teacher says that he was then ordered to move because he couldn’t stay there. No help was offered to him, he swears.
“Like a wounded animal, I crawled 20 feet on the ground. My girlfriend started crying,” he said, still in shock.
Mr Guy was called in for triage and says he was again refused a bed by the nurse even though one was available nearby.
“I went to bed next to her for the exam, on the dirty ER floor!” he raged. She was extremely rigid. »
The latter points out that after this examination everything changed and he was finally placed on a stretcher 30 minutes later.
“You saw clearly that I needed care! said the man, who was sent home after a week in hospital without a diagnosis.
operation required
Two weeks later he was examined at the University of Montreal Hospital Center. He has been confirmed that a disc in his back is crushing nerves and that he will need another operation.
At the request of Le Journal, the management of the Saint-Hyacinthe hospital wrote that Mr Guy was “assigned to a stretcher as soon as possible while his condition was being assessed”.
For his part, Mr Guy was told by management: “It’s against their protocol to give the ER a stretcher because everyone is asking for it,” he repeats.
“I was really angry, it sucks what they tell me. At CHUM they brought the stretcher next to the car, the man rages, not wanting to stop there. My girlfriend should have filmed. »
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