A Port Coquitlam woman wants an apology from the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) over how her sick father has been cared for at Surrey Memorial Hospital (SMH).
Her story is the latest in a series of reporting by 1130 NewsRadio detailing cracks in the B.C. health-care system.
Mariah Costain says her 79-year-old father was rushed to SMH late last month. He has a number of health issues including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and advanced lung cancer.
“He’s not supposed to stand unassisted. There was no one to help him and the call bell was not within his reach at all, and I got up multiple times to ask the nurses questions about him and also to help him,” she shared. “I went a couple times to ask the nurse to check his vitals. The nurse said she was ‘behind’ and ‘she would get there when she could get there.’ But she didn’t end up coming.”
As a single mother of seven, Costain says she wasn’t able to be with him right after he was admitted but visited the following day. Costain says she found him alone, struggling to breathe, and in desperate need of using the bathroom.
“Instead of letting my dad poop his pants because he really had to go, I decided to help him to the bathroom. I had to get a chair to wheel him out. There was no nurse to be found when I tried to find a wheelchair,” she explained.
“Some person who called themselves a ‘one-on-one worker’ handed me a rolling commode and I had to get him out of the bathroom with a rolling commode. He also fell in the garbage can as we were putting him on the commode. Again, his nurse was nowhere to be found.”
Mariah Costain’s 79-year-old father (pictured with one of her children) was rushed to SMH late last month. (Supplied)
After that, Costain says she stepped out of the room yelling for help and swore out of frustration. She admits it was wrong to curse but doesn’t agree with the staff’s reaction.
“Because I said f***, one of the nurses came up and started giving me s*** for swearing. I get I shouldn’t swear, I get that, but my father was dying. I was panicking and I did swear. And this male nurse came up and … said he was going to call security.”
Costain says she pulled out her phone and started recording the chaos in her father’s room and claims security arrived. She says she was instructed to delete the footage off her phone but didn’t.
In the midst of that, she says nurses checked on her father.
“They put the sensor on him that checks your oxygen level, his oxygen was 70. Not in the 70s, it was at 70. And all that guy was carrying on about in the hallway was that I swore,” she explained.
“One of the nurses came in and said to him, ‘Where’s your oxygen?’ He was supposed to be on oxygen. And he said, ‘They haven’t given it to me.’ They basically left him there to suffer. It’s disgusting and to treat me like a criminal because I swore.”
Costain understands health care workers are overworked and burnt out and knows she was wrong for swearing, but stresses she was swearing at a staff member out of frustration.
In the days following, she says she received a call from Fraser Health who told her they would reach out to the ER manager the night her father arrived.
By November, Costain says staff told her there was a specialist at St. Paul’s Hospital who could perform surgery on her father to help him breathe. He was transferred on Nov. 6 and remains there, after she says she was told there was no expert, and the surgery was too dangerous given his end-of-life state.
She’s now trying to get him back to Surrey Memorial.
In a brief statement, Fraser Health stopped short of issuing an apology and tells 1130 NewsRadio, “Surrey Memorial Hospital site leadership has been in direct and ongoing contact with the family. Additionally, our Patient Care Quality Office has also been in contact with the family to support them.”