Cheryl Vanhuizen was sure something had gone terribly wrong when it took five hours for someone to come to her home to remove the body of her dead commonlaw husband.
She learned later that changes to provincial regulations make waiting the norm.
?It felt so disrespectful,? said the 43-year-old waitress ?It would have helped us a lot if he?d been taken to the hospital.
?There should at least be a room there where the funeral home could have picked him up.?
Instead, 53-year-old Willie Shawkence lay on the kitchen floor of the couple?s townhouse in Corunna where paramedics had stopped working to resuscitate him around 9 a.m. Jan. 25.
He died from a sudden stroke and had flatlined, prompting a physician at the base hospital to decide that he would not be transported to hospital.
According to revisions made in 2011 to Ontario?s Advanced Life Support Patient Care Standard, protocol was closely followed that dictates no trips are made to the emergency department if there is no chance of survival.
A very specific set of criteria must be fulfilled that includes no pulse in the presence of the paramedics.
Vanhuizen?s life partner continued to lie on the kitchen floor while police arrived and a coroner was called. He stayed there while the coroner determined the death was not suspicious, and while the funeral home was dispatched.
?It?s just so hard on the family,? said Vanhuizen whose 13-year-old daughter was home at the time.
?She?d never seen a dead body and the smell of death was in the house. It was a terrible thing and it was worse because he was left there so long.?
In every case, the professionals who assisted that morning were top-notch, Vanhuizen said.
?My young daughter was in shock and the nice police officer said he didn?t feel right leaving us, so he stayed until he knew we would be all right....?
She thinks Ontario?s protocols should be re-examined.
But others disagree. They say the new rules, although hard on loved ones, are there for good reason.
?I?m very supportive of the changes,? said Jeff Brooks, manager of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) for Lambton County.
In 2008, 50% of cardiac arrest patients in Sarnia-Lambton were taken to emergency if they died outside the hospital, Brooks said.
Last year, only 30% went to the hospital.
Exceptions are made, Brooks added, such as in the case of a death in a restaurant washroom where it was decided that it was in the public interest to transport the body by ambulance.
He said there are numerous reasons for the new rules. Lower healthcare costs is just one.
?An ambulance that is not transporting someone to hospital when there is no chance of survival, is free to respond to a call for someone else with chest pains,? Brooks said.
It also means a speeding ambulance isn?t putting other people at risk on the road. And it means doctors and nurses aren?t attempting to revive someone in the ER who has no vital signs.
?I think it seems kinder for the family,? Brooks added. ?We can notify family, call victim services and the family can start the grieving process at the home rather than in some little back room of the hospital.?
Rob Gilpin of Gilpin Funeral Chapel in Forest also supports the new protocol.
He took the call that morning to pick up Vanhuizen?s deceased commonlaw husband and knows the wait was traumatic.
?But everyone did their job and there was nothing out of the ordinary,? Gilpin said.
He said he ?hates? the new protocol that means paramedics leave the remains at the house.
?Funeral homes would rather do the transfer from the hospital. On the other hand, it?s saving the government money if there?s no hope.
?And it?s not raising the hopes of the family that their loved one might survive if they go to emergency.?
cathy.dobson@sunmedia.ca
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Source: http://www.lfpress.com/2013/02/12/new-ontario-protocols-mean-fewer-trips-to-er
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