Woman who lost mother-in-law launches website to collect health care stories

A woman whose relative died shortly after leaving an emergency department in Cape Breton has launched a website to collect other Nova Scotian's stories about their experiences with the health care system.

Katherine Snow describes her mother-in-law Charlene as “the glue that held our family together.”

On December 30, after being sick for several days, Charlene was triaged for her jaw pain and flu-like symptoms, then waited over seven hours at Cape Breton Regional Hospital before she finally gave up and went home. 

The 67-year-old wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother died about an hour later.

“She was just too uncomfortable,” Snow told CityNews, adding Charlene had been told she likely wouldn't be able to see a doctor until the next morning.

“So she said, 'you know what, I'm going to go home and try my luck at the urgent care clinic in the morning,' but she didn't make it to the morning. Her husband picked her up, she came home and she died on the couch within the hour.”

Earlier this week, a man told reporters his wife — 37-year-old Allison Holthoff — died on December 31 after waiting seven hours to see a doctor at Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre in Amherst.

Snow said since her family's loss, several other people have come forward to tell her their experiences with the health care system around the province.

“I thought, okay, I'll do a post and offer to collect these stories … I posted early afternoon and by suppertime it had 1,000 shares, hundreds of comments and my inbox was flooded,” Snow explained.

She called up a friend in Halifax, who hopped in a car and drove the nearly five hours to Port Caledonia to help her, and soon after nshealthcarecrisis.ca was launched.

Snow is hoping her website will help put a human face on Nova Scotia's health care crisis.

“We wanted other people to know they're not alone,” she stated. “Reach out, make sure your story is told because it matters and it could make a difference.”

“If one person gets extra attention sitting in an ER waiting room and it results in their life being saved, that's good enough for me.”

She also hopes compiling all these stories in one spot can help narrow down common themes of things that can be improved.

And Snow said, not all stories submitted so far are from a patient's perspective.

“There are so many hard working people on the front line, I mean we're suffering in the system and they're working in it,” she said.

“I think the top really needs to listen to the front line and give them what they need to take care of people, so they don't have to go home wondering if anyone they saw went home and died.”

Snow said a review is underway to determine exactly what happened during Charlene's emergency department visit.

“If everything was done that could have been done, we'll sleep better, but we also want to know if there was something missed because we don't want that to happen to someone else.”