Laura Stradiotto
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Sudbury Star
Cleo Gratton was known for his big heart and his instinct to look out for others. A retired diamond driller in the mining industry with a love for moose hunting and travel with his wife, Diane, he lived life fully until his health began to deteriorate after a triple bypass surgery two years ago.
Gratton had been contemplating a medically assisted death (MAID, or medical assistance in dying) for some time, but his most recent hospital stay — fraught with pain and disappointment — confirmed his choice. He resolved never to return to Health Sciences North, choosing instead to die in his Chelmsford home with dignity.
Gratton was in the process of arranging a medically assisted death when he passed away naturally and peacefully at home, surrounded by his family on Oct. 26. But he wanted his story to be known, and asked that his family share it in the hope that it might spark change in what he saw as a deeply broken health care system.
His daughter, Lynn Gratton, wrote about her father’s experience on social media one day after he was rushed to Health Sciences North on Oct. 20 after experiencing pain. According to Lynn, her father waited in the emergency department for 12 hours before being moved to the seventh floor where he was placed in a hallway with no lighting, table for a food tray, phone or bathroom.
“A nurse who came to do an assessment on his feet had to look for flashlights and headlamp to do the examination,” Lynn wrote on a Facebook post that has been shared more than 750 times. This was during daylight hours, she later confirmed with The Star.
“There’s no dignity anymore, it’s just awful. The system is so broken,” said Lynn in an interview the day before her father passed away. “My dad’s IV pull was being held up with tongue depressors and tape.”
In addition, she says the hallway setup is a fire hazard, with not only patients and beds, but stations, equipment, soiled and clean linen, too. “The moment you get off the elevator, you are zig-zagging your way down the hall,” she said.
Her father had multiple hospital stays this year alone, with internal bleeding in March, symptoms of a stroke two weeks later, and then again in May, at which point he told his family he hoped it was the last time he visited there. However, he was in kidney, liver and heart failure, so his family knew that another hospital visit was inevitable.
Though he was nearing the end, Cleo wanted his daughter to bring his experience to public attention. “Dad is very cognitive and knows everything that is happening,” Lynn said. “He’s very weak but is getting ready to say goodbye to everyone. He told me to promise to keep fighting after he was gone. We are not done with this. We are not just doing it for dad, we are doing it for everyone who is in that hospital right now. If we don’t fix this, it’s just going to get worse. What’s next? You are going to visit your loved ones in the parking lot, in a tent?”
Woke up in intense pain
Lynn said her father awoke in the middle of the night of Oct. 20 with incredible pain, pleading with his wife to call an ambulance. When Lynn arrived at Health Sciences North, her father was in the waiting room.
“The waiting room is a completely different experience, it is atrocious,” she explained. “There are people coming in and sleeping, taking three, four seats, and there are families that are standing up. It’s not ideal. And it’s so dirty. Hospitals used to be a place where people could go to heal in a sterile environment. There is nothing sterile about that place.”
After waiting for more than seven hours, the family was moved to an assessment area around 9 a.m. “to sit in chairs”, said Lynn. It was 3 p.m. – 12 hours after his arrival – that her father finally saw a doctor. He was then admitted to the seventh floor.
Lynn and her brother Ricky, and her mother were upset with their father’s placement. There was a second patient in that hallway behind a curtain, said Lynn.
“That night after I had a fit, he was put in a private room,” said Lynn. “My father has his family to advocate for him, and I know that there are families that have no one. Can you imagine what they are going through?”
Despite the experience, the family says they have nothing but respect for the nurses, doctors and support staff. “Imagine if we are complaining about this, what they have to work in?” said Lynn.
Cleo was deemed palliative when he was released on Oct. 22. But the family assumed he was palliative before he was admitted and moved to the seventh floor.
Lynn said there is an obvious lack of hospital beds, and considering the community has a growing aging population, along with a mental health and addictions crisis, she expects the situation to worsen if substantial investments are not made soon. Lynn also worries that if people have similar experiences, they, too, are choosing not to return to the hospital to seek medical help because of “substandard care.”
As the family makes funeral arrangements and comes to terms with the loss of a beloved father and husband, Lynn said there is comfort in knowing his life ended on his own terms. But at the same time, they wonder why dignity is no longer part of patient care at HSN.
“This is not Ok. You’d see this in a third-world country, not in Ontario, Canada,” she said.
Hospital says it needs more beds
Jason Turnbull, director of communications from Health Sciences North, said that the emergency room sees, on average, more than 200 patients a day, in a space that was never designed for today’s demand.
He said that while patients are assessed by a doctor, on average, within 2.1 hours, the greatest pressure on the system is for patients who need to be admitted, waiting about 15 hours for a hospital bed. The provincial average is 17.6 hours.
“While that is better than the provincial average, it doesn’t mean the experience is ideal for patients and we acknowledge that,” Turnbull said in a written statement. “We are simply built too small for Northeastern Ontario’s needs.”
He said that over the past year, HSN has worked hard to improve flow, including reducing the number of alternate level of care (ALC) patients occupying acute care beds from 120 three years ago to 50 currently. While this has helped to reduce wait times, it has not addressed the need for more beds to meet population demand.
Turnbull said that on any given morning, there are about 30 patients in the emergency department waiting for a hospital bed. HSN has 526 beds but cares for an average of 630 admitted patients every day.
“That means our hospital routinely operates at 120 per cent capacity, and more than 130 patients receive care in hallways, tub rooms, the Emergency Department, or in temporary placements such as retirement homes each day,” he said. “This is not the care environment we want for anyone, and it reinforces the need for additional hospital capacity for the region.”
When it comes to determining which patients can be placed in an unconventional space, like a hallway, there is a bed management policy that sets out criteria, ensuring patients are moved to the “safest possible location based on their care needs, but it does not change the fact that we are consistently over capacity,” said Turnbull.
When hallway spaces are used, Turnbull said HSN takes steps to maintain safety and dignity, such as providing privacy curtains, nearby washroom access, and additional confidentiality measures, guided by strict criteria in its bed management policy.
Despite the challenges, Turnbull said HSN is a very efficient hospital, with the cost of an average hospital stay at $6,140 compared to $6,960 in Ontario and $7,862 nationally. Still, HSN ended last year with a $11-million deficit and expects another deficit this year, he said.
HSN is not alone. The Ontario Hospital Association estimates that an additional $1 billion is needed this year so hospitals across the province can keep up with population growth and inflation.
“We know this is worrying for patients and families, especially as demand, complexity, and population growth continue to rise across Northeastern Ontario,” he said. “HSN is working closely with the province and the Ontario Hospital Association on long-term solutions that will stabilize hospital funding and support the future of regional care.”
HSN has a long-term redevelopment plan to modernize the hospital and grow to 852 beds by 2043. The first phase of the plan focuses on the most urgent needs, including expanding the emergency department to meet the demand of an increased number of patients presenting with mental health and addiction disorders, along with more patient beds for that population and other acute care needs.
“These priorities align with provincial health objectives, and we know the provincial government understands our challenges,” said Turnbull. “The province provided HSN with a $5-million planning grant in 2023, and we are now awaiting approval to advance to the next stage of the five-stage capital planning process.”
Additionally, when patients are not satisfied with the care they receive and have feedback on their experience, positive or negative, they can reach out to the Patient Relations team at patientrelations@hsnsudbury.ca.
“We want to make sure patients across northeastern Ontario understand that providing high-quality patient care in a safe environment is our top priority,” said Turnbull.
The Local Journalism Initiative is made possible through funding from the federal government.
sud.editorial@sunmedia.ca
