An emergency room patient at the Montreal General Hospital is accusing its staff of neglecting patients.
On December 7, Donna Sarraf was treated at MUHC for a punctured lung and several broken ribs. This as result from falling off a horse.
She said when she arrived there, the stretcher she was placed on didn't have a call bell to alert staff.
"So I found myself in a a large ward full of very sick and injured patients, with no method of summoning my designated nurse," Sarraf told CJAD 800 in an email.
"I was in a great deal of pain due to the recently repaired collapsed lung, and broken ribs. It was almost impossible for me to lift myself off the stretcher to go to the bathroom, and at one point I was caught hanging half on and half off, unable to move until another patient summoned a nurse to help me up."
She added the commotion inside the room made it impossible for her to rest.
"There was a lot of crying and a lot of screaming and it was very difficult," she said. "There would be patients coming in that were screaming obscenities and being wheeled out."
She alleges the patient next to her, who has a broken hip and had her voice box removed, was ignored by an ER doctor tasked with treating her.
Sarraf said a doctor promised the patient medication, but then disappeared for two hours. Then over the span of a couple of hours, several staff members came by, and never administered any medication to help with her on-going pain.
"Later, a fourth nurse began yelling at (the patient) in an angry tone, telling her to 'stop calling me every minute for pain medication.'," Sarraf said.
"It is appalling and unbelievable to me that an elderly woman with cancer, no voice, and a broken hip should be left lying in agony on a stretcher for hours with no pain relief, simply because a doctor does not take the time to call the desk to requisition it," She added.
In an email to CTV Montreal, the MUHC defended its doctors.
"MUHC doctors, clinical staff, and employees do their best to care for patients professionally and compassionately," it said.
The MUHC also said that the incident warrants an investigation, and that they intend to start that process as soon as possible.
Patient advocates attribute several factors to the poor quality of care.
"Why are emergency units and waiting units not welcoming," Paul Brunet, a health advocate, asked. "I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a veterinarian, but [the clinics] are very welcoming and the space, the environment, is very welcoming."
There’s also the issue of the number of nurses in the province.
Brunet said that about a thousand nurses have left the profession.
"This is historic," he said. "We’ve never seen that before."
In July 2017, the Liberal government promised $300-million in renovations of the Montreal General's ER.
It is not yet known if the current CAQ government will follow through on the promise of the previous provincial government.