“It’s crazy back there,” the nurse says as she points her thumb toward the triage area, where about five people with a variety of injuries are waiting in line. The two middle-aged women sitting to my left look at each other. One of them asks the nurse if the emergency room is understaffed. “We always are,” the nurse replies. It’s around 9 a.m. in the emergency room at the Health Sciences Center in St. John’s. As I turn my head to look at the dozens of exhausted faces around me, I can tell it’s going to be a long day for many of them. It’s no secret that there is a shortage of health workers in Newfoundland and Labrador. In September, Eastern Health asked people to stay away from the emergency room of St. John’s unless it is “absolutely necessary”. The provincial government has even used Brand Name Come Home Year in efforts to bring health professionals back to the province. Because of these shortages, there has also been much talk of long wait times in emergency hospitals. To see what that experience is like for patients, I spent seven hours in the Health Sciences Center’s ER waiting room.
Finding ways to pass the time
When I sit down, I tilt my head back and close my eyes for a moment, enough for a long day. At least the chairs are surprisingly comfortable. I hear the sound of crutches hitting the white tiled floor. A middle-aged man enters with a swollen right foot that is both shoeless and sockless, and crawls on the floor as he maneuvers, trying to find a position. During my time in the ER, I watched this man limp out of the room to see a doctor and then back to his seat at least three times. Another middle-aged man rises from his chair and finds a new place to rest, twisting to rest his upper body against the Plexiglas barrier to his right. His left eye is completely closed, covered by a swollen black and purple bruise. Scratches and scabs are scattered across his nose and upper face. CNN is the only channel playing on the TV in the waiting room. (Duncan Major) There are about 20 to 25 of us sitting in blue vinyl chairs, some of which are separated by plexiglass. The room is hot and stuffy. The only sounds in the room are phones ringing, nurses periodically calling out patients’ names, and lots of coughing. There is a TV placed in the upper left corner of the room. CNN is the only channel playing all day — the newscast is muted, with subtitles scrolling across the screen. I’m watching TV. The headline reads, “Surge of RSV cases leaves pediatric hospitals reeling.” Fitting, I think to myself as I look away from the TV.
The man with the bandage on his feet
Suddenly I hear music. A woman to my left, wearing purple pajamas, shows the man next to her a TikTok video of people dancing — they both laugh, but I can tell it’s only a brief distraction from the pain the man is experiencing. “Oh my god, it feels like I’m standing up,” he says, grunting as he pulls up his left leg. There is a beige bandage, about three inches thick, wrapped tightly over his left ankle. He looks at it momentarily before tilting his head back and narrowing his eyes. The woman in purple gets a phone call and the ringtone sings, “your son is calling you.” She answers and says that the man with the bandaged leg is “taking his chances” at the ER because it’s too hard to get an appointment with their family doctor. “It would take weeks and weeks,” she says into her phone, looking at the aching man beside her.
Lunch for those far away
An elderly woman wears a hospital gown with a white blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Every few minutes, he has a coughing fit. (Duncan Major) An elderly woman sits in a clunky black wheelchair directly across from me, wearing a hospital gown with a white blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders. A green tissue box sits on her lap and every few minutes she has a coughing fit. She lifts a tissue to her mouth, releases a wet cough, and drops the tissue into the small black trash can her daughter has placed next to her. It’s around 1pm and the faraways have a few options for lunch. Some have Tim Hortons sandwiches and coffee, while others choose bags of chips from the vending machine. I’ve brought two chocolate chip cookies from home and as I’m eating my ‘lunch’ I hear the man with the bandaged legs let out a shuddering breath. “The stuff is just leaking out of my leg and the bandage is leaking,” he tells the woman in the purple pajamas. “My ankle is all swollen and it goes right down my foot and my toes and everything.” I leave my cookies and save them for later.
Would it be worse anywhere else?
After four hours of waiting, the man with the bandaged legs is called to see a nurse. “Thank God,” he says under his breath. There are no windows in the waiting room and my phone battery is about to die, so I’m literally twiddling my thumbs when two elderly women sit next to me. They talk about the shortage of doctors at the moment when they are comfortable in their positions. “It’s a waiting game,” says one of the women, wearing blue jeans and a fuzzy, pastel yellow sweater. “It’s quite the racket.” With about 30 people in the waiting room now, a nurse asks if any visitors and loved ones could give up their seats to patients. I look around the room one last time before leaving. I see a woman with a sling on her arm, blood slowly seeping through a bandage on her right temple. He’s been here for at least three hours. I turn to look at a man in a white t-shirt sleeping in a chair in the hallway across from me, arms crossed over his chest. He’s been here for at least four hours. The woman in the purple pajamas is back and probably waiting for the man with the leg bandages. There’s no telling how much longer he’ll be here. The two old ladies sitting next to me joke with each other that they will be here until midnight. I wish I could have told them to put on their comfy pants. One asks the other: “Would it be worse anywhere else?” Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
