Wife’s death after 1.5-hour wait for ambulance has Edmonton doctor demanding change

0:00A pretty serious story here. This is one that was breaking hearts across the Capitol region. Once it came into the spotlight at the tail end of last week, and it's one that the family involved wants to make sure that we don't forget, that we don't stop talking about it. Because here's the thing, life and death are pretty simple on the surface. One minute you're here, the next you're not. But often a minute can make all the difference when it's our time to shuffle off the mortal coil. And that is, as I say, the case of our next guest, who had to say farewell to his wife Elaine far too soon. Even though there might have been time to save her, it certainly looks to be the case. So to chat about his tragic ordeal, and what needs to happen to avoid having this fate before another family here in Alberta, join now by Dr. Keith Blay on the show today.

1:00Thank you for taking the time. Yeah, thank you, Courtney. The first thing I just want to say is thank to the MTs and the paramedics that came out to help her and all the people at the University Hospital. My concern is why I'm doing this is I'm supposed to be grieving, but myself and my sister-in-law, Mona, her sister, cannot let this go. And now we're in 24 minutes from the time on a Friday morning, early on a Friday morning. And there's a chance that my wife, if she had gotten to the hospital, we don't know that she could have survived. And why we're doing this is we don't want to have this happen to anybody else in another Albert, another Emitone, another person to swatch their wife being resuscitated in their house. And then nodding be able to say goodbye to her as well.

2:03And that's why I'm doing this. There's, we're doing this and whoever will listen to us. EMS has, we did put a complaint in, and EMS has reached out to us and they're investigating it. But what we're trying to say is it's sometimes has come back saying this, it's a learning experience. And I said to the people who, a person who said that to me, I said, this is not an experiment. Person died over this. And I don't want another person for this to happen. I don't know what the solution is, but the thing is, it needs to be addressed. This has been going on for a while. What the solution is, I don't have the solution right now. But if we don't talk about it, I'm going to go back to what the premier said about another thing. She said, ignoring something isn't going to make it better. She wasn't talking about health care, but I'm going to put the her words back to her saying that by ignoring this problem, you're not going to solve it.

3:04So something has to be done about it, just so that nobody else has to experience what I experienced on a Friday morning just before I'm going to work. And I, you know, my wife dies. And I just don't want this to happen to anybody else. Yeah. Yeah. Well, before we get into a little bit more around this, I want to be able to make sure that, you know, that this isn't just a name in a story, that this isn't just, you know, someone we don't, we aren't able to put a face to. Obviously, we know how much Elaine meets, meant to you, we can hear it in your voice. But I want to give you an opportunity, just give us a sense as to who she was. What kind of person she was? So she was my wife for, for 45 years. She loved dogs. Yeah. She loved life. She loved rock and roll, rolling stones.

4:07She loved rock, hard rock cafe. She had a jacket that she went around with that. She was kind to people. She would go out of her way. Yeah. Pay for people's meals, people's gas when they wouldn't know about it. That sounds like the world is a little bit a less better place with her not being part of it. And 13 half marathon. Yeah. So I mean, it's, yeah, she's, yeah, she, we traveled all over Europe and stuff with my comrades. And she helped me set up my premedical practice where I'm out of out well medical clinic. She was, she was involved without as a medical office system. So, so I have a lot to thank for. Yeah. And I mean, with respect to your profession, obviously being a physician. I mean, you know, a lot of people in, in this circumstance, wouldn't be able to keep the, their head cool. They wouldn't necessarily know what needs to be happening, what should be happening.

5:09You know, I mean, as this was unfolding, what was going through your mind in terms of what you were seeing, of what you were experiencing? Let me go back to this. So she calls to me and says, she calls to me. I come down, I said, what happened Elaine? I fainted. I hit my head. I go, I go over to her. She's cold and clammy, short of breath. I try and get her up. And she just drops, I catch her, but she drops just like that. So we had her sitting at the edge there. There's no way I could have got her into the car or I would have drove to the university hospital. And I had to wait for the ambulance because it wasn't safe to move her. And the attendance tried to, they couldn't get her up too. They asked for help from the, like, I'm not supposed to have held, sorry, I'm not probably to know that they had called for, for somebody to come, they called the dispatch from to have somebody come and help them

6:11lift her onto the stretcher. And from my understanding, I will say allegedly, they refused. Then she, unfortunately, after that, they were tending to her. They put some oxygen on her because her oxygen was low. And then she lost consciousness. And she then had a cardiac arrest in our house. She never reached, as far as my understanding from what I asked, she never, she never retained consciousness on the way to the hospital. And probably arrested in the, in the, in the ambulance. And the people, I go to the hospital thinking that maybe she's still, because I didn't know all this. And they very quietly sent, we have to bring you to the quiet room. I knew right away that she had died. The nurses slowly brought me into where Elaine was. They were very compassionate. Dr. The emergency doctor, Dr. Dong told me they tried to resuscitate her twice, shock her twice, but they couldn't get her heart to come back.

7:14And they said, I'm sorry. Then the pastoral care came and talked to me. Shine was one of the ladies that looked after me. And the, the people from the, the priest came and gave her her last rights and everything like that. And this is what my Friday morning was with her. So I have, again, I have the EMTs and paramedics. I don't want their job. It's hard. They did what they could do. But the problem was, is that they were behind the eight ball. They should have been out there earlier. Part of the problem we know is that they're sitting in an emergency someplace trying to load off patients. So once there's a bad opening, but there is no room. So they have to sit there with, there. And they would, they want to go to the call, but they can't go. And the, it took 17 minutes from them, from our house to go to, from what I was told to get to the university hospital. The, the call went out to them at six o'clock in the morning. They came at 617.

8:14So they were probably sitting at the use at U of A emergency. Bay, probably, because that's, it's 17 minutes, 17 minutes. So the math would be that. So there's, this is, that's one of the problems. And they, they, I don't know how to fix that. The, the, the emergency is all, you know, we all know about that. Yeah, but because you know, you take a look back at when Premiersmith first came into power in 2023. And one of the first things that she said out of the gate was targeting EMS and improving what you're talking about, specifically what you're talking about within a hundred day mark. Obviously, the proof is in the putting tragically in this instance here. I think back to another tragic case in our health care system from earlier this year at a 44 year old father at the gray nuns, waited eight hours to get his chest pains diagnosed. He passed away seven months ago. We were promised that there would be triage doctors in the hospitals to make sure that this doesn't happen seven months later. It still hasn't happened.

9:15You know, I mean, you're, you're living proof of the cost of inaction on the, on these pledges, on these promises from the government. You hear this. You've experienced it. Just, you know, if the premier is listening right now, if the power is the beer listening right now, what do you want it? What do you want to tell them? I want them to say that they cannot ignore this. Just like she said, it's not going to solve the problem. We're talking about it and quote, quote, learning about the experience. It's been happening too many times. It's probably happened to other people who are listening to you, but maybe they're, they're, they're, they'll have one survived. They need to do something to help so that the EMS people can, can get to their job and do their job and get their quicker. I'm not sure how to solve that, but they need to address this thing before more people die and help, Albertans die.

10:15This is Alberta. We're not in a third world country, you know, and I just, I just don't want this to happen to somebody else. Yeah. Well, I didn't try to go on. I said, you can hear it in my voice. Yeah. I care for other people to do what, to suffer through what I suffered through at the house there. I could imagine if it wasn't, I'm not, I'm, I'm a husband and I'll, I'm not going to talk as a doctor, but if somebody else there, they, I think they would have lost their mind. I seriously think they would have lost their mind. Yeah. Well, and I appreciate the, the gravity, the tragedy here that you're still in the throes of seven weeks later, obviously, but Elaine would be, I think, very proud of the courage you're demonstrating in making sure that her story isn't lost in the shuffle and that it is at the forefront and that hopefully someone will listen, someone will do something

11:19show that, you know, her death is an in vain in that way, I suppose. And myself and her sister Moana are not going to let this go. We're, you know, it's just, it's just, there's a safety issue here for Albertans and somebody has to address it. Well, and I appreciate, yeah, I appreciate you're, you're coming on here today, uh, Guy and in talking to us about this. And as I said, making sure that, that this is not something that falls by the way, said that we continue to talk about this to make sure that, this doesn't happen again. So again, thank you very much for your time today and condolences on your loss. Okay, thank you, Courtney. There you go. That's Dr. Guy Blay.