Tonight on ‘Closer Look’: 16-year-old Finlay van der Werken died after waiting more than eight hours in a hospital emergency room. His loved ones are fighting to ensure no other child meets the same fate
A grieving family from Burlington, Ont. is trying to turn their immeasurable loss into a force for change.
Finlay van der Werken was 16 years old when his mother, Hazel, rushed him to Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital on Feb. 7, 2024. The teen was in such severe pain on his right side that his mom left the car in front of the emergency department and took him straight in.
What happened next was a “complete state of terror,” his mother said.
While waiting more than eight agonizing hours to be treated at the hospital, Finlay suffered cardiac arrest and was eventually diagnosed with pneumonia, sepsis and hypoxia. Transferred to SickKids in Toronto, he was placed on life support.
“It just didn’t feel real,” Hazel said, during an interview with Village Media’s Closer Look podcast. “It was a living nightmare, just the shock, the disbelief. I don’t know that I can put it into words.”
Finlay’s family is now laser-focused on making sure others don’t endure the same heartbreak.
Along with demanding a coroner’s inquest, they are calling on the Ford government to introduce legislation — “Finlay’s Law” — that would establish maximum emergency room wait times for children.
They have also launched a lawsuit against Halton Healthcare Services, which operates the Oakville hospital, alleging the facility had an “inadequate system” in place to ensure patients like Finlay were seen in an appropriate amount of time. (In a statement of defence, the hospital operator denies any wrongdoing and says staff provided “reasonable” care that night.)
“We have the possibility to ensure that another family does not have to go through this,” Hazel told the podcast. “That will give us a little bit of a feeling of comfort — that we’ve done something, and that we used our voices for something good to come out of something that is so tragic.”
You can watch the full episode in the above YouTube video.
Podcast hosts Scott Sexsmith (left) and Michael Friscolanti, Editor-in-Chief of Village Media.
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