B.C. nurses call 911 to deal with collapsed man

So what exactly do nurses do if they aren't administering care in a hospital?

Apparently watch collapsed people lay on the deck.

Although I thought it was nice of them to take time out of their busy schedule to call 911 for the guy.

This whole incident seems to stink more of "work to rule" rather than incompetence or indifference.

I've heard of similar stories but usually they refuse to do anything because the person is just outside the hospital doors. Are EMT's somehow more qualified to do triage before any other medical care can be given?

Similar situation in an Edmonton hospital last month. Fellow was visiting his wife, who was a patient. He had some type of attack-diabetic, I think-. Rather than call a code, nurses phoned ambulance and waited for paramedics to come pick him up, take him around to emergency dept. A few days later, the guy gets a bill for several hundred dollars for the ambulance call! After the media got ahold of the story, the bill was withdrawn.

Hiding behind fear of being sued. Remember what happened to the bus driver who asked the kids to help push the stuck bus. That fear is real and it is effecting policy.

It would be the hospital's policy and not the nurses. The hospital would be sued, not the nurse's who fall under the good samaritan act. When you are working you are being paid and are there to follow hospital policy. You also have responsibility to the clients who are in-patients. Nurses have to make sure they are covered by the employer in such cases. There is always an issue of visitors becoming ill or falling. I thinks that a code should have been called. But I don't know that hospitals policy.

The Good Samaritan Act wouldn't protect the nurses. The law states that if you
are a medical professional you are not granted the same protection that a non-medical Samaritan would have. The idea there is that if you are a professional you know what you are doing, therefore you can be sued if something goes wrong.

People can sue the hospitals AND the nurses. I am a medical professional this this is something you may need to keep in mind with our wonderful tort system.

Still when someone collapses don't act like your from N Korea. Help the guy be a human being.

Yes you are right that when you are in the health care field you do have to make sure you are covered with malpractice insurance from the employer for such cases.

The Good Samaritan Act wouldn't protect the nurses. The law states that if you
are a medical professional you are not granted the same protection that a non-medical Samaritan would have. The idea there is that if you are a professional you know what you are doing, therefore you can be sued if something goes wrong.

People can sue the hospitals AND the nurses. I am a medical professional this this is something you may need to keep in mind with our wonderful tort system.

Still when someone collapses don't act like your from N Korea. Help the guy be a human being.

Yes you are right that when you are in the health care field you do have to make sure you are covered with malpractice insurance from the employer for such cases.

This is Canada we're talking about here guys. How many negligence lawsuits against doctors, nurses or hospitals (all government) have you heard about that have been successful?

Suing the medical community in Canada is akin to farting against the wind, it feels good but it really makes no difference. The best you can hope for is an apology from the regional health board with their promise never to let it happen again.

At least this guy is alive, there've been cases where people have died and all they got was that worthless apology and the "We promise to do better speech".

But then again, I suppose if you had enough money you could keep going to court for the years the Govermnent would drag it out before you finally got a verdict.

I got to thinking about the mechanics of suing the medical community in Canada and happened upon this.

Medical Malpractice Litigation
Canadian Perspective
The Role of the Medical Expert

Overview
Prosecuting medical malpractice actions is more difficult in Canada than in many United States and United Kingdom jurisdictions. Canadian judges tend both to be more reluctant to find breach of medical standard of care, and to require more exacting proof of causation. Medical defence is skilfully managed, and is underpinned by a sophisticated intelligence network and generous financing.

For the litigator with aptitude and interest, there is an abundance of potential causes of action. However, a master skill for success is the ability to identify early the fatal flaws in the vast majority of enquiries, and to invest time and money only in the relatively few which will probably succeed. Primary screening is legal and paralegal; secondary screening is medical.

Raw medical expertise must be refined by the successful litigator. Most physicians with a minority interest in legal medicine need time-consuming education in legal concepts and requirements. The plaintiff advocate must not only be bilingual in medicalese but understand in depth the ways the concerns and constructs of medicine and law are dissimilar. With patience and practice, the medical malpractice lawyer can learn to word questions so that the expert medical witnesses reply in legally meaningful format.

http://www.medlit.info/guests/mmpcanadian/medlit.htm

So it appears to be a case of good luck buddy, give us you're money and we'll milk you for all you're worth before we lose the case for ya.

Not at all like the states, is it.

There's probably some sort of protocol about dealing with incidents that occur outside the wards or the emergency room. If the guy went up to the desk of the nearest ward he might not have been talking to a nurse, but rather to an aide or one of the clerks and they would have been useless to give any sort of help at all. And the article said that the paramedics did arrive within about 10 minutes, so the wait time for first-response really wasn't out of bounds at all. I'm not sure of the hospital procedures for emergencies of this sort, but the paras are able to make the proper assessment of the patient while the average ward nursing staffers might not be. If they moved him incorrectly or prematurely before he was stabilized they might have ended up killing him instead and then the headline would be, "why didn't they wait for the paramedics to show up?".

This probably will end as the usual tempest-in-a-teapot that was set into motion by the typical half-informed and half-assed media coverage where the reporters haven't even bothered to talk to the hospital admin yet to get the information on how the staff are supposed to respond to a situation like this. For all we know right now, the staff calling 911 and waiting for the paras to arrive and assess was 100% the correct thing to do. I'd hold off on any knee-jerk judgement calls on this one until more information is available.

Alberta health care sure is expensive-it was only $45 in BC last I had to take an ambulance.

Alberta health care sure is expensive-it was only $45 in BC last I had to take an ambulance.


Healthcare in Ab is free. Ambulances however have always been a separate issue. ie; Private business. About 18 mos ago though, the province took over all ambulance services, so I'm not sure how it still is that peeps get billed for ambulance services. I'll check this out with my nephew, he's an EMT.

Suing the medical community in Canada is akin to farting against the wind, it feels good but it really makes no difference. The best you can hope for is an apology from the regional health board with their promise never to let it happen again

'Profound apologies' have been made to the man and his family as of Sunday. Family is considering legal action against the hospital.

Good luck finding ambulance services covered by the province.