Directive to better inform cardiac patients awaiting surgery ‘great start’ but not enough, family who lost mother says

A Manitoba policy change ensuring cardiac patients understand the urgency of their conditions and get a targeted timeline for surgery is a “great start,” says the daughter of a Manitoba woman who died waiting for treatment last fall.

Colleen Dyck said Wednesday she’s grateful to Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara for issuing the draft ministerial directive earlier this month, giving heart patients and their families a better sense of their particular situation.

Her 69-year-old mother, Debbie Fewster, died in October after waiting months for surgery she was told she needed within weeks.

Dyck said the directive falls short of the legislative change that’s needed to prevent Manitobans from running out of time while awaiting treatment to save their lives.

She said pairing Asagwara’s measure with “thoughtful, enduring legislation is better.”

“A collaborative bill supported by both the current government and opposition would be a strong step and it would help to make it party-proof (so) when there’s a change in government directives don’t just come and go.”

Fewster’s family and Saskatchewan-based national think tank SecondStreet.org called on the province to enact “Debbie’s Law,” legislation that would require health authorities to tell patients when they cannot provide life-saving treatment within the medically recommended time and to advise them when to seek help outside Manitoba.

SecondStreet.org president Colin Craig said health authorities should be penalized when patients die because of long waits to ensure people like Fewster, a grandmother from Niverville, don’t fall through the cracks.

“I think it would make sense to hold the health region to account and they can figure out the details in terms of what exactly went wrong and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Craig said Wednesday at a news conference in Winnipeg.

Later in the day, Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook introduced her private member’s Bill 226 — the Health System Governance and Accountability Amendment Act (Reporting When Timely Care Not Available), or “Debbie’s Law” — at the legislature.

Cook said the bill would address issues not included in the policy change, including requiring health authorities to notify patients when all types of life-saving care — not just cardiac treatment — cannot be provided within the medically recommended time frame and offer them information about out-of-province care.

The bill doesn’t suggest penalties, which Cook said she’d be open to, but the rules of the legislature don’t allow for financial penalties in private member’s bills.

Asagwara acknowledged the need for accountability but dismissed the idea of fining regional health authorities.

“I want to make very clear my priority as minister is making sure that systems are investing and spending their resources making sure that there are more surgeries, more cardiac care — not sending money to the Department of Health,” Asagwara said.

Debbie’s son, Daniel Fewster, said that since speaking out about his mother’s death, he and his sister have heard from families who have experienced the same frustrations and losses, as well as doctors and nurses on the front lines.

“They’re as frustrated as we are, you know, to be the receiving doctor in an (emergency) room and to be yelled at by a family because their dad or their mom died,” he said. “They carry the stress and the weight of all that. From what we’ve experienced with them, it is a system problem, it is an administrative problem.”

Fewster said the cardiac program at St. Boniface Hospital is investigating what happened in his mother’s case.

“They’re going to follow up with us about exactly what that was,” he said. “My heart goes out to the teams there. They’re not in any easier position than we are.”

Asagwara also directed Shared Health to ensure that the cases of people who die while waiting for their procedures are tracked, reviewed and reported.

“If we don’t track the problems and make the statistics of the deaths and what’s happening there plain for all to see, we can’t solve the problem,” Fewster said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca