{"id":16259,"date":"2025-07-22T20:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16259\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:16:13","slug":"new-brunswick-man-waits-over-12-hours-in-er-to-confirm-heart-attack-new-brunswick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16259\/","title":{"rendered":"New Brunswick man waits over 12 hours in ER to confirm heart attack – New Brunswick"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Moncton, N.B., man says his faith in the province\u2019s health-care system is shaken after it took more than 12 hours of waiting in the ER to be seen by a doctor for a suspected a heart attack.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jonah Imeson, 35, was escorted to the emergency department at the Moncton Hospital last month while there for an appointment.<\/p>\n

He had felt chest pain and numbness in his arm \u2014 telltale signs of a heart attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cI then was sat in the ER waiting room and I was there 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and I didn\u2019t get in until 4 a.m. Thursday morning,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I was there, I was showing other symptoms. I was sweating profusely and I had to get up and I think I threw up about five to six times while I was in the waiting room.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Imeson says the waiting room was completely \u201cswamped\u201d with patients. There were so many people waiting for care, there was a shortage of chairs and he was left standing at various points during his many hours in the room.<\/p>\n

By midnight, Imeson says he considered walking down the street and calling an ambulance to see if that would hasten his ability to see a doctor.<\/p>\n

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Finally, at 4 a.m., he was seen by an ER doctor. After a series of tests, it was confirmed he had indeed had a heart attack.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was terrifying finding that out,\u201d he said, adding that a doctor told him that if he had fallen asleep while in the waiting room, \u201cthere\u2019s a very good chance I wouldn\u2019t have woken up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething needs to change because otherwise, more people will die because they\u2019re not being appropriately taken care of. Whether it\u2019s on purpose or by accident doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Imeson\u2019s case \u2018deeply troubling\u2019: Horizon Health<\/p>\n

In a statement, Horizon Health\u2019s vice-president of clinical operations, Greg Doiron, said Imeson\u2019s case was \u201cdeeply troubling\u201d and didn\u2019t reflect their standards of care.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients presenting with chest pain or symptoms suggestive of a potential cardiac event deserve timely and immediate access to emergency medical care,\u201d wrote Doiron.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe take this matter very seriously and have initiated a quality review to better understand what happened and take all necessary actions to help prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Doiron added that the health authority knows that long wait times in emergency departments are \u201cincredibly distressing for patients and families\u201d and that they are working to improve patient flow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would note that our ED staff closely monitor the condition of patients in our waiting rooms, including regular check-ins, taking vital signs and regular reassessments to ensure that any change in status is promptly addressed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The 2022 death of 78-year-old Darrell Mesheau<\/a> in a Fredericton emergency room increased scrutiny in the state of the province\u2019s health system, and emergency room protocol.<\/p>\n

Blaine Higgs, who was Progressive Conservative premier at the time, called the death \u201csimply unacceptable.\u201d He swiftly replaced his health minister and the head of Horizon Health Network, which oversees the province\u2019s anglophone hospitals.<\/p>\n

A coroner\u2019s inquest into Mesheau\u2019s death made three recommendations<\/a>, including that staff be equipped with hand-held electronic devices to record patient vitals.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:16
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInquest told N.B. patient found slumped in chair after waiting 7 hours\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Moncton, N.B., man says his faith in the province\u2019s health-care system is shaken after it took more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,14266,84,392,14267],"class_list":["post-16259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-er-capacity","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-moncton-hospital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}