'The system is obviously broken,' says N.S. man whose wife died in ER

For the Holthoff family, a trip to the emergency room at the Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre on New Year's Eve turned into a nightmare.

Gunter Holthoff, of Tidnish, N.S., said his wife Allison began feeling sick the morning of Dec. 31, but thought she just had an upset stomach. When it worsened throughout the morning, Holthoff drove his wife to the nearest emergency department in Amherst, N.S., around 11 a.m.

Holthoff said he carried Allison into the hospital on his back. 

"She was obviously in pain," he told CBC News in an interview Sunday. "I was rolling her in the wheelchair and she could hardly sit up."

The pair waited more than six hours in the emergency department waiting room and then in a room inside the unit as Allison's pain worsened. Holthoff said it was after 6 p.m. before they saw a doctor and Allison received any treatment.

By then, he said, it was too late.

After they were triaged, Holthoff recalled, the nurses asked for a urine sample. When he took Allison to the bathroom, he couldn't support her alone and she fell to the floor.

"I couldn't get her up myself so I went outside the door and just asked for help," Holthoff said. Two security guards had to assist her. 

When Holthoff took Allison back to the waiting room, he said she was no longer able to sit in the wheelchair the hospital had provided because of the pain she was in, so she ended up lying on the floor.

"I told the nurses and the lady at the desk there a couple of times, 'It is getting worse,' and nothing happened," he said. "So the security guards, in time, they brought a couple blankets out and they brought us a cup of water and I used it to put some ice on her lips."

As more time passed, Allison told her husband she felt like she was dying. He approached the nurses a few more times. 

Around 3 p.m., the couple were taken to a room with a bed, but no medical equipment. Holthoff said he had to help Allison use a bedpan and used paper towel from a roll on the wall to clean up. 

"At some point there, she was getting worse and she started to scream out in pain," he said.

A nurse came in and checked Allison's blood pressure again, and saw it was alarmingly low. Holthoff said that's when things started to change and the care became more urgent.