Three weeks into her husband’s stay in the hallways of Victoria General Hospital, Angie Edroff is appealing to health-care administrators to consider how long is too long before a patient is moved into a room.
Denis Edroff, 78, father of fundraising phenomenon Frankie Edroff — previously known as Jeneece — has been staying in a bed in a hallway on the sixth floor of the hospital since June 5.
He’s one of about four patients parked in the hallway, according to his wife.
Angie Edroff said her husband has to endure 24-hour fluorescent lighting, the noise of staff “and carts going down the hallway bumping into the beds” and a lack of windows.
“It’s totally not healthy for patients,” Angie said, adding her husband has had more stays in the hallway than in a room over three years of admissions, but this is the “longest stay in a hallway bed so far.”
Angie and Frankie posted a video on social media this week calling for more transparency about who gets a bed and when. They want administrators to devise a better system, so that even if a patient must be in a hallway for a period of time, there’s a limit and some kind of rotation.
“People who are in the rooms and are 48 hours from being discharged, why can’t they spend two nights in the hallway?” Angie said.
Denis Edroff has ongoing health problems that have been exacerbated by accidents — cutting his shin, which became infected and led to chronic problems, and most recently breaking a rib, resulting in nerve damage.
He was admitted to hospital for testing and a procedure that was performed on Wednesday.
“The nurses are all sympathetic but they’re dealing with this every day,” said Angie Edroff. “It’s not the quality of care — it’s the quality of where they are doing the care.”
Angie Edroff said she contacted Island Health’s Patient Quality Care Office department but after some back and forth, she was advised to get her husband’s permission to talk to the office.
“And they want me to go in and talk to a head nurse who I know doesn’t want to hear from a patient’s family about the fact they’re in the hallway because that nurse can’t do anything about it.”
Island Health said in a statement that when its sites are extremely busy, some patients can be cared for in “temporary places,” including hallways, which is “not ideal.”
The health authority said its overcapacity protocols include rotating patients from hallways into rooms whenever possible to minimize time spent in hallways. “This has not occurred for this patient and we apologize. We will follow up [with] our care teams to ensure we understand what has occurred.”
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