A 44-year-old Indian-origin man died of suspected cardiac arrest after he reportedly did not receive any treatment for several hours at a hospital in Canada. Prashant Sreekumar was rushed to the Grey Nuns Community Hospital in Canada's Edmonton after he complained about severe chest pain while at work on December 22.
However, the father of three was kept in the Edmonton hospital's emergency room waiting area for more than eight hours, sparking serious questions about emergency healthcare response times in Canada.
Sreekumar’s family said that after he complained about chest pain, a client drove him to the Grey Nuns Hospital, where he was checked in at triage and then took a seat in the waiting room. His father, Kumar Sreekumar, soon reached the hospital. "He told me, 'Papa, I cannot bear the pain’," Kumar Sreekumar said.
According to Sreekumar's father, he told the hospital staff that his pain was a 15 out of 10. After that, hospital staff did an ECG on him to check his heart's function, but told the patient and his family that there was nothing of significance, and they were kept waiting.
As time passed, the staff offered some Tylenol to Sreekumar for his pain, but his blood pressure kept increasing. "It went up, up, and up. To me, it was through the roof," his father said, adding that he was finally called into the treatment area after waiting more than eight hours.
"After sitting maybe 10 seconds, he looked at me, he got up and put his hand on his chest and just crashed," Kumar Sreekumar said.
Nurses called for help and tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. Prashant Sreekumar died of an apparent cardiac arrest, leaving behind his wife and three children, aged three, 10 and 14.
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