Ontario couple whose teenage son died after 8-hour wait in ER calls for law reform

 

An Ontario family is calling on the provincial government to introduce legislation that would set maximum emergency room wait times for children after their teenage son died following an eight-hour wait for a doctor in a hospital last year.

GJ and Hazel van der Werken, of Burlington, Ont., said their 16-year-old son, Finlay, had a few days of mild illness and was suffering from migraines before his condition began to worsen. Hazel rushed him to Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital on Feb. 7, 2024, she said.

“We go through to the normal emergency department which was filled with a lot of people, just the whole corridor was just full of people in chairs,” Hazel recalled in an interview Thursday. “That was where Finlay was calling out in pain.”

He was triaged quickly, she said, which gave her hope that he’d see at doctor “at any moment.”

“But the ‘any moment’ turned into eight hours and 22 minutes,” Hazel said.

When Finlay was finally assessed by a doctor, he was diagnosed with hypoxia and pneumonia caused by sepsis, Hazel said. He was intubated and eventually transferred to SickKids Hospital in Toronto, where he was put on machines to take over the functions of his heart, lungs and kidneys.

“No improvements were made, it just kept going from bad to worse, up to the point where the doctor called us in and said there is no chance of Finlay coming out of this,” said GJ.

After Finlay died, the family decided to take legal action. They didn’t want to stay silent about what happened to their son, GJ said.

“Long wait times are normal apparently, and nobody seems to fight this,” said GJ. “Since Finlay can’t voice his concerns, his wishes, his demands anymore, we felt obliged that we have to speak for him and try to do whatever we can to prevent this from happening to other people.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/11346268/finlay-van-der-werken/