Métis woman speaks out after being turned away from St. Boniface Hospital in medical distress
CBC
Warning: This story contains graphic images.
A Métis woman who lives with diabetes is speaking out after she says she was turned away from a hospital emergency department in Winnipeg last week while in medical distress.
Jacqueline Flett, 38, went to St. Boniface Hospital last Thursday, after she developed a painful ulcer on her foot and her blood sugar levels were off. She knew something was wrong.
"The infection was going up my leg — it was excruciating pain," said Flett. "My foot was like three times the [usual] size."
Before going to the hospital, she checked wait times on the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority wait time website.
Flett says after she arrived, she waited two hours in the wait room before being triaged, which seemed out of step with the wait times posted online.
She eventually approached the nurses, who she says told her they hadn't seen her waiting. A nurse took Flett's temperature and began the intake process.
There were only three other people waiting in the seats around her after she'd had her temperature taken, Flett said.
She sat back down, but was frustrated and started documenting details of her visit on her phone. Then she tried calling patient relations.
A short time later, she says she saw nursing staff call security guards over. Flett said the guards approached her and told her the nurses claimed she was using the camera on her phone to take photos or video.
That isn't allowed in hospitals under the Personal Health Information Act. Flett says she was aware of this and hadn't been filming or taking pictures.
The guards asked to see her phone. Flett allowed them to take a look, but all they found were photos of her kids and her diabetic foot wound, she said.
"They seen that there was no pictures, there was no videos. They went on my social media, there was no pictures or video on my Snapchat," said Flett. "They told me I was to go to another hospital."
The suspicion and long wait she experienced reminded her of Brian Sinclair, whose death at another Winnipeg hospital has been called a preventable product of racism.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
Warning: This story contains details some may find disturbing.
A commercial food processing company has pleaded guilty to a workplace safety charge after an Edmonton worker became trapped in a smokehouse and died.
The will of a deceased B.C. woman will be contested by an old friend, her closest living relatives and a male escort approximately 54 years her junior following a decision by a provincial Supreme Court judge.
In the search for three-year-old Claire Bell, Quebec provincial police have located an important witness they say spoke to her mother on Sunday — just hours before she reported her child missing.
Toronto cop gets suspended sentence, probation for assault over fake watch sale where man later died
An off-duty Toronto police officer has received a suspended sentence and a year of probation after being found guilty of assault for forcing a Brampton man to the ground in 2021 over a fake Apple watch in a Kijiji deal gone bad.
The P.E.I. Fishermen's Association says it is closely monitoring the situation after Fisheries and Oceans Canada restricted a fishing area off P.E.I. waters due to the detection of an entangled North Atlantic right whale very close to the Island's coast.
Abuse of referees in amateur sport has been an issue for decades and all sorts of attempts have been made to curb the problem, from sternly worded signs that remind fans to be respectful to green armbands that identify novice officials to body-worn cameras that record footage from the refs' perspectives.
When his lawyer's name flashed on his phone early last month, Michael Murray ducked out to answer the call — the physician was in the middle of seeing patients at his medical clinic in Hawaii, but this call from Toronto felt important.
Victoria Gold's receiver wants to put the Eagle mine in Yukon up for sale.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump met one-on-one for 30 minutes on Monday morning, but before their respective teams joined to continue the discussion, the two leaders invited reporters and television cameras into a meeting room in Kananaskis, Alta. to witness them exchanging formal pleasantries.
On the final day before G7 leaders gather in Kananaskis, Alta., activists and community groups met in downtown Calgary on Saturday afternoon for a "people's forum" that took aim at the priorities of G7 leaders.
An Island optometrist has gone mobile, providing on-site eye exams at long-term and community care homes across western P.E.I..
The Laviña-Galve family held a joint funeral in Scarborough on Saturday for three children killed last month in an alleged impaired driving crash on Highway 401.