Sister of man who died waiting at Winnipeg ER feels relief, some closure after hearing from officials

The sister of a man who died while waiting for care at a Winnipeg emergency room says his family is feeling relief, and some closure, after speaking with health officials to learn some details about what happened that day.

Officials said on Tuesday a middle-aged man had died after waiting about eight hours to be seen at Health Sciences Centre.

Ronalee Reynolds said she was contacted by the hospital Friday morning with confirmation that man was her brother, 49-year-old Chad Christopher Giffin.

She told CBC on Friday her family was left with many questions — including why he was brought to hospital by ambulance but assessed as low acuity, and what caused his death.

But in a call later Friday, Dr. Shawn Young, HSC's chief operating officer, told her what he could about her brother, and that the hospital is looking into what kind of monitoring he received that night.

She was also contacted later Friday by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who expressed his condolences to the family.

"We've got closure now," she told CBC on Saturday. "We aren't worried. We aren't wondering." 

Young told Reynolds that Giffin, who was well known by emergency room staff at HSC, had been picked up by an ambulance near the Salvation Army, after someone called 911 because he was outside and looked cold. 

He arrived at the hospital just after midnight and was declared dead in a resuscitation room just before 8 a.m., after staff noticed his condition had worsened.

Reynolds said Giffin had "a lot of underlying health issues," but doesn't know yet if his death was related in any way to his medical history, or if something had happened before he got to the hospital. 

Officials have said Giffin's death will be investigated as a critical incident, defined by the province as a case where a patient suffers "serious and unintended harm" while receiving health care.

Reynolds hopes that review leads to improvement around how notifications to family are made when someone dies. 

She told CBC News Friday her brother had estranged himself from their family for close to a decade. The last time she was aware of exactly where he was staying was in 2018. She was notified he'd been reported missing after walking away from the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, where she said he'd been taken several times. 

During a sentencing hearing in 2020 following a run-in with the law, court heard Giffin was homeless and often slept in shelters.