Health-care system is 'broken,' Niagara woman says after dad dies suddenly in emergency room

As her father laid sick on on a gurney in a Niagara-area emergency room, Ann-Marie Zammit reassured him he'd recover. 

The medical staff at the Welland, Ont., hospital had told her despite an infection, and being in the emergency department for days, CJohn didn't have a fever, his vitals were stable and they'd be conducting more tests the next morning, Zammit told CBC Hamilton in an interview. 

She had reason to be hopeful. Before his illness, CJohn, 88, lived independently and was his happy, healthy and quirky self, she said. 

But that night at the hospital, CJohn insisted he wasn't going to survive the night.

"He told me his final wishes and I'm like, 'Dad, we're not going to need this because you are going to pull through,'" said Zammit. 

The next morning, June 1, Zammit  got a call from the hospital. Her dad had died. 

"And it was unbelievable because they'd kept telling me that his vitals are stable, his vitals are stable," she said. "Then I got a call from the doctor and he said this was very surprising news." 

Zammit doesn't know what caused her father's death, but pointed to the lack of resources at the hospital as significant factors. For example, he'd stayed in the emergency department for several days because there weren't any beds available in other departments to move him to. 

"This broken system killed my father," she said. 

Zammit shared her experience at a public hearing in Welland last weekend organized by the Ontario Health Coalition. 

The coalition, which advocates for improvements to the public health care system, is documenting experiences like Zammit's at hearings around rural Ontario this month. With input from opposition critics, the network of over 400 grassroot organizations wants to draft recommendations on how to improve local hospitals, especially in rural areas.

The group hopes to provide those recommendations to the province in a report later this fall.

Executive director Natalie Mehra said it will follow their report last year, which recorded almost 1,200 emergency room closures in the province.

"The goal is to push the Ford government and stop them from continuing to shut down and dismantle public health services and sort of destroy them through privatization," said Mehra.