Lions Gate Hospital, which is part of the Vancouver Coastal Health system, doesn’t have good help to provide quality health care services that will increase the chances of folks staying alive.

Case in point, an elderly woman died from heart failure after waiting, for two days, in the waiting room under a blanket on a stretcher for help from doctors and nurses who have the knowledge and skill set to treat her bad heart. A nurse, who has been working for the hospital for quite a while now, spoke on condition of anonymity to the Vancouver Sun folks.

The nurse told the Vancouver Sun folks that each nurse had between 12 to 17 patients to care for during the two days, July 9-11, when the woman was a patient at the hospital and that the woman and her daughter were understanding about the stress the nurses were under.

Here’s what the Vancouver Sun folks quoted the nurse as saying, “Every single nurse, when they gave reports, said she’s really sweet. She’s with it, she’s understanding, she’s patient. Her daughter was here all the time. They’re lovely people. They weren’t getting angry at us. They understood. They were flexible. They were so lovely.”

Hmm…Now, according to this nurse who’s been at the hospital for a while, now, all of the nurses who “checked” on the woman took time to write down in their reports how understanding, flexible, and lovely the woman and her daughter were when it came to their, the nurses, stressful situation.

Unbeknownst to the nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Vancouver Sun folks, she’s really pointing out how non-caring, insensitive, and inflexible the nurses are.

There, the old woman was dying from a bad heart, for two days, under a blanket on stretcher hidden away in a corner. And the only thing on the nurses’ minds was not the care the woman needed or trying to get her to a hospital that could provide her with the proper care to keep her upright in this life, but whether the woman was a good decent human being who was worthy of their subpar treatment sometime down the road.

Everybody knows that a nurse’s personal views about a patient should not be in a nurse’s report. A nurse’s report includes the who, what, when, where, how, and why, not the me, my, and mine. Who the patient is, what is wrong with the patient, when the patient arrived, where the patient is, how the patient is doing, and why the patient is doing how the patient is doing is all that is needed in a nurse’s report.

All that stuff about how nice the patient is is not needed in order to provide quality care to the patient. Yet, the nurses and doctors over at Lions Gate Hospital think it is. And a good number of them think that way because they are insensitive and incompetent. Just read what some folks have said on RateMDs, which the hospital has a 2.5 rating on, about the quality of the patient care services that they received at Lions Gate Hospital:

    “I had a horrible birth of my son at this hospital. Dr. Stephen Kaye
     delivered my baby. He is a horrible man who shredded up my
     vagina and caused me severe PTSD that I am still dealing with
     today. Beware of this cruel man delivering your baby." (December
     6, 2021)

    “Very poor communication between staff of else they are purposely
     ineffective and in efficient! Much casual chatting and wandering
     by staff while people are forced to wait and waste their time
     waiting." (February 10, 2022)

    “Horrible service specially ER. Rude careless staff, I don’t know
     how most of the staff even in ct scan can be so ignorant. I never
     go there if I close to death." (April 27, 2022)

     “Took over an hour to get anyone to look at my father..he is 90
      years old, on blood thinners and had been experiencing
      substantial bleeding for 4 ½ hours…inefficient and completely dis
      organized is the impression I am left with…seems like a lot of
      nothing going on in the “emergency” department…once he was
      taken in for an evaluation other staff came looking for him 10
      min later..is “anyone” in charge here?" (May 2, 2022)

Of course, like all things, the “to dos” over at Vancouver Coastal Health, who tell the folks over at Lions Gate Hospital what to do, say it is the COVID-19 pandemic, not their health care workers, decreasing the quality of care that the patients are receiving.

According to the “to dos” over at Vancouver Coastal Health , the COVID-19 pandemic has caused such problems as nurses and doctors calling off.

The call offs have resulted in the working nurses and doctors having to take on an increasing number of patients which has led to an increase in patient wait times. And an increase in patient wait times means a decrease in the quality of patient care.

COVID-19…it’s so mean. Having said that, COVID-19 can’t be blamed for everything. The problem of incompetence and non-caring doctors and nurses were all there before COVID-19 came on the scene. Once again, here’s what folks on RateMDs had to say about the quality of care they received from Vancouver Coastal Health system’s hospital, Lions Gate:

    “I have worked in healthcare for over 20 years and I am shocked
     and appalled at the treatment my father recently received by the
     ER nurses at LGH…The nurses were abusive towards him…To the
     male nurse who accused him of lying about his symptoms, you
     should be ashamed of yourself and you should not be allowed to
     care for patients." (March 10, 2017)

    “My 80yr old friend, who is very active and still self employed and
     voluteers her time in the community has been waiting 5 days now
     for knee surgery…Her surgeon keeps bumping her and taking other
     people on the list. I bet if she was 20 and it was a sports injury
     she would have had her surgery right away and be in rehab by
     now!!! This is shameful treatment!” (July 22, 2017)

    “Young rude nurse got her ego bruised and gave me the worst
     care. Lied to me and said she was moving my wheelchair outside
     to make more room and tried to give it to other patients. She did
     not know how to bandage a foot properly for wound care and was
     going to use dirty gauze on my wound which just had surgery. Her
     attitude towards patients showed no compassion. The er doctor
     was very thorough but too busy to notice mistakes the young
     nurse was making.” (January 12, 2018)

Vancouver Coastal Health is a business providing health care services, via its hospitals, to the public. Therefore, it is the job of Vancouver Coastal Health to make sure that all of its hospitals are prepared to deal with the very thing that hospitals suppose to be prepared to deal with, emergencies.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an emergency. The “to dos”, however, didn’t prepare their system’s hospitals to deal with the emergency. As a result, the COVID-19 pandemic did what all problems do which is to expose the rot and decay within the system.