‘State of chaos’: Man spends 5 days in hospital, speaks out on health-care crisis
A New Brunswick man who spent five days at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton, N.B., with pneumonia says he saw first-hand the ongoing impact of the health-care crisis in the province.“I saw nurses, doctors, and all other hospital workers try their best to keep a semblance of some sort of health care going,” Tim Brooks wrote in a post on Facebook.“Their frustration was visible and at times they couldn’t contain it, but their dedication never wavered.”He said he shared what he saw and heard because he wants people to know the impact and the strain the New Brunswick health-care system is under.He went to the ER, while visiting his family for the holidays, on Dec. 27, 2023, showing signs of a respiratory illness with no improvement.
He said when he walked in, the ER waiting room was packed.A triage nurse assessed him and brought him to the ER, where he encountered what he described as “chaos.”“It was just a state of chaos, something that you wouldn’t expect to see in Fredericton’s capital city, three kilometres away from the legislature,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.The things he witnessed left him disappointed, he said.“There were people lying on stretchers everywhere. It was really hard to get around. When I was sick, I needed the washroom.
They were pretty dirty. There was specimen collection at some ground,” he said.“Time of death was being called. There were dementia patients.
There were elderly patients needing care. There was a lot going on. There was trauma coming in.
Everything. Everything was coming in. There were 20-plus — I’d say 20-plus, probably more — EMTs in a back hallway, with all of their patients on stretchers.”He said he could hear people calling out for help.
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