WINNIPEG—A man who died during a 34-hour wait in a hospital emergency room vomited on the floor during his final hours, but a security guard on duty said he assumed Brian Sinclair was intoxicated and “sleeping it off.”
Alain Remillard told an inquest that a man in the waiting room at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre informed him Sinclair had either thrown up or soiled himself.
At that point, Sinclair had been waiting almost 24 hours for care.
Remillard said he walked toward Sinclair, saw a clear liquid at the base of his wheelchair and turned around to call housekeeping to clean it up.
“I never spoke to him,” the guard testified Thursday. “I was assuming at the time that he was sleeping. Since he posed no security threat, I didn’t feel it was necessary to wake him up.”
In cross-examination by the Sinclair family lawyer, Remillard said he noticed the man was dishevelled, aboriginal and a double amputee.
“At the time, I did assume he was somewhat intoxicated and sleeping it off,” he said when pressed.
It’s not unusual for people to vomit in the emergency department, so Remillard said he “didn’t think it was a medical issue.”
“I didn’t think it was worth notifying nursing staff. It was more a housekeeping issue.”
Medical experts have testified that Sinclair vomiting was a sign his body was going into shock. The inquest has heard Sinclair vomited several other times before he died of a treatable bladder infection caused by a blocked catheter on September 2008.
Sinclair had been referred to the emergency room by a local clinic because he hadn’t urinated in 24 hours. The 45-year-old is seen on security footage being wheeled into the emergency department and speaking to a triage aide. The aide is seen writing something on a piece of paper before Sinclair wheels himself into the waiting room. He doesn’t appear to leave the emergency department again.
Another security guard has testified he raised concerns with a triage nurse about the length of time Sinclair appeared to have been waiting. The guard said he was told Sinclair had been treated and released but had returned to the hospital.
Garth Smorang, lawyer for the Manitoba Nurses Union, suggested there are often many people in the emergency department who aren’t waiting for treatment. Some people are waiting for test results, homeless people come in to take shelter and family and friends of patients can also be found there, he suggested.
Remillard said security would have no problem alerting nursing staff if someone were in medical distress.
“If someone were to have a seizure, I would notify the triage nurse immediately.”
The inquest has heard that Sinclair was well known in the emergency room and had come there dozens of times. He lost both his legs to frostbite in 2007 when he was found frozen to the steps of a church in the dead of winter.
The hearing was to adjourn Thursday until October.