Nancy Wilson, a Sault Ste. Marie native now living in Cornwall, Ontario, says she’s been in contact with a lot of people with no answers as to how an ‘emergency medical situation’ is defined.
Her elderly father, who resides in a Sault retirement home, was diagnosed with cancer in January.
Doctors explained the tumour in his body could be removed through possibly life-saving endoscopic surgery before it increases in size.
With that urgency in mind, Nancy’s father was given a surgery date of May 1, the operation to be performed by a gastroenterologist at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital.
Nancy, speaking to SooToday Wednesday, said “I set up hotels and flights (for her father and herself) in early February. My father wanted this.”
“The understanding was for me to call (St. Michael’s Hospital) five days in advance to confirm we were coming.”
But before then, COVID-19 had thrown everyone’s lives into upheaval.
“I called in early March and left a message with the doctor’s office. There was a ‘shift.’ They weren’t doing surgeries as in-depth at St. Mike’s (over fears of COVID-19 transmission), so I got an answering machine message from the doctor’s office saying they didn’t know what was going on yet, they couldn’t answer any questions but we’ll be in touch with you.”
“We were in a panic.”
“We don’t know if the surgery’s going on. There’s my father not knowing as well, so there’s that emotional toll. We’re trying to be architects without having a foundation,” Nancy said.
She contacted a Sault Ste. Marie surgeon who has worked as a liaison between her father (who does not have a family doctor) and the St. Michael’s specialist.
“His office also tried to call the doctor, with no response. If they’re not getting a response, who do I go to?”
“I understand there must have been a huge panic (related to COVID-19) at St. Michael’s Hospital. At the time, things were very unknown, but I’m sure this has left a lot of people afraid, asking ‘what do we do?’”
Nancy said she began calling various St. Michael’s Hospital departments asking to be transferred to anyone who could help.
Able to obtain the specialist’s email, she made the surgeon aware of her concerns, asking if her father’s surgery would still proceed May 1 as originally planned.
Nancy said the surgeon, in an email reply she received April 16, indicated it would be “highly likely” the surgery would be cancelled for May 1.
“That’s all I needed to hear at that point,” Nancy said.
“It created a lot of fear...and it wasn’t a definite cancellation. It was a ‘more than likely.’”
Late last week, Nancy received a phone call from the surgeon’s nurse stating the surgery is postponed until mid-June at the earliest.
Nancy said, while the nurse expressed sympathy for cancer patients who need life-saving surgery, she added her father’s surgery couldn’t be performed before June unless he was in “an emergency situation.”
“I don’t know what the definition of that is. To me, this is an emergency situation...operations are happening, but it seems only if they’re life threatening at that very moment. There is an increase of risk (for her father while he waits for surgery),” Nancy said.
“The tumour will get too big for them to operate. We’ve already waited three months, and to me, a cancerous tumour and three months is a long time. To me, it’s very risky at this point.”
She added the nurse told her St. Michael’s was not making the decisions, but rather the Ministry of Health.
The alarming uncertainty and COVID-19 restrictions come on top of what would be a stressful situation for her father under any circumstances, Nancy said.
She stated there were no flights available to take her father from the Sault to Toronto, only from the Sault to Sudbury, then Sudbury to Toronto.
“It would be safer just to drive the eight hours to Toronto (after Nancy had driven to the Sault from her home in Cornwall in order to pick up her father).”
“(In addition) I wouldn’t have been able to escort him to the hospital at this point (due to COVID-19 restrictions). He would have to go in alone. I would have to stay in a hotel and I understand if you leave a hotel you have to self isolate, so I would be potentially putting him in danger.”
“I would be willing to sleep in my car,” Nancy chuckled amid the stress.
She contacted Ornge (formerly Ontario Air Ambulance Corporation), which informed Nancy her father could only be transported if he was incapacitated, ready to be transported on a stretcher.
She said Sault Area Hospital officials told her they could do nothing unless her father was an inpatient at the facility and in an ‘emergency situation.’
Her father is a veteran.
Regardless, “Veterans Affairs couldn’t do a thing for me (though Nancy added the department was helpful in the past for her now-deceased mother).”
“The most helpful people (in terms of expressing sympathy) have been at the local legion (the Sault’s Royal Canadian Legion Branch 25).”
Nancy said she has sent over 40 emails, seeking help from medical facilities, organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross and elected officials, including a message to Sault MPP Ross Romano’s office.
“They were helpful as they could be,” Nancy said, though she said she is still in the dark as to what the Ministry of Health defines as ‘an emergency situation.’
She said sending emails and making phone calls to Health Minister Christine Elliott is next on her list.
“I’m getting a little discouraged...the Ministry of Health should have some answers. Thousands of people’s lives have been put on hold. I know of other cancer patients who have been put on hold.”
Meanwhile, Nancy said she keeps in touch with her father by phone, his spirits still up despite the worry.
“He’s a very spiritual man. He’s very positive, he’s a ‘whatever happens will happen’ kind of guy, ‘it’s in God’s hands,’ that kind of thing.”
