Fraser Health orders review after patient left bleeding overnight in hallway

In yet another example of B.C.'s health-care system being at the breaking point, Fraser Health has ordered a review after a patient was left in a hallway overnight while bleeding heavily from an untreated miscarriage.

In yet another example of B.C.'s health-care system being at the breaking point, Fraser Health has ordered a review after a patient was left in a hallway overnight while bleeding heavily from an untreated miscarriage. 

Sonia Portillo knew she had miscarried, but was surprised by sudden, severe blood loss and wooziness that prompted BCEHS to rush her to Langley Memorial Hospital last week, where she was admitted after waiting an hour or so in the emergency department early in the afternoon.

"I was bleeding through my clothes," she told CTV News. "I tried to get up to walk and it was no-go, just instantly dizzy, nauseous, and I needed to lay down even to recuperate my breath."

Several hours passed with nurses checking on her occasionally, she said, but no one brought her pain medication despite increasingly intense cramps and pain; her partner approached the nurse's station to see if someone could help her that evening.

"I said, 'Is there anything that you can give her?' and it was, right away, tense, confrontational," said Estevan Garcia, who described being dismayed at the volume of blood, drop in blood pressure, and ongoing pain Portillo had been experiencing.

"She was in no condition to advocate for herself."

Shortly after that, the couple says, a doctor finally arrived to prescribe painkillers, but Garcia was met with hostility by the same staffer when he tried to get Portillo a pillow.