No Patient Left Behind

Message from Dr Innes

Why do we need No Patient Left Behind? During 40 years as an emergency physician, I dealt with many waiting room disasters and met many families who lost their loved ones because of emergency department (ED) care delays. These people are the inspiration for No Patient Left Behind.

This story began 25 years ago when I was working in a Vancouver emergency waiting room. Every chair was full. People were moaning. Someone was on the floor vomiting in a wastebasket. Two cops were restraining a psychotic patient in the corner. People were milling about in obvious pain and someone was yelling obscenities at the triage nurse. Six or seven paramedic crews were lined up down the hallway, unable to offload their patients, which meant they couldn’t respond to emergencies in the community. It was chaos. No one could move to a care space because all of the stretchers were blocked by admitted patients waiting to be moved upstairs to hospital beds. I had the closest thing I ever had to a panic attack. I decided I had to quit my job or do something about this absurd situation. I had never been interested in administration or leadership but the next week I applied to be department head.

Six hour waits for emergent patients should never happen, but now they are the norm. Worse are the waiting room tragedies, and there are many . . .

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