outlining 16 recommendations<\/a> to improve the health care system following a judge-led inquiry into the death of the 44-year-old father of three.<\/p>\nNiharika Sreekumar spoke to CityNews on Friday from her southeast Edmonton home, saying that since her husband\u2019s death, her house feels like a cemetery. She feels this report says nothing new.<\/p>\n
\u201cI printed the report last (Thursday) night and was intrigued to read the 16 recommendations. If you give me five minutes, I can have at least 20 documents like this (report) printed from an AI software,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I don\u2019t know what took them two months to prepare this document and release it to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report released on Thursday, dated Jan. 14, found that ER overcrowding\u00a0and long wait times\u00a0are plaguing Alberta\u2019s health care system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Acute Care Alberta\u2019s review recommends increased staffing, expanded emergency department space, and improved patient movement across the province to reduce pressure on the system.<\/p>\n
It also outlines the need for triage doctors to speed up care in Alberta\u2019s busiest ERs. Since the new physician role was announced in January, the province has been caught up in negotiations with doctors over terms of the position, including pay and insurance liability. <\/p>\n
No timeline for the new role has been shared publicly.<\/p>\n
Niharika Sreekumar is also frustrated by communications with the provincial government and health agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not consulted. This document is absolute crap it serves no purpose to me and my children,\u201d she says. \u201cIt does not help Prashant.\u201d <\/p>\n
Niharika goes on to say, \u201chis death could have been completely avoided. My children and I are paying the price of this failure. They haven\u2019t paid my bills or offered help in the interim. My once lively house is now a cemetery that I come back to every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement to CityNews, the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services says, \u201cAcute Care Alberta is working with Covenant Health and other service providers to implement the recommendations from a number of reviews to strengthen patient safety, avoid adverse events and help prevent similar tragedies. Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Mr. Sreekumar and anyone else impacted by adverse events. We are committed to system improvement, and patient safety remains our highest priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ministry also stressed that a\u00a0\u201cthorough, independent, and transparent\u201d\u00a0judge-led fatality inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Sreekumar\u2019s death has been scheduled for October 19-23, 2026, and December 14-18, 2026.\u00a0This is on top of an independent review by the Chief Medical Officer and an internal review already completed by Covenant Health, which runs the Grey Nuns Community Hospital.<\/p>\n
But Sreekumar\u2019s widow tells CityNews her trust in the health care system is shaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government is trying to shove it under the carpet, citing funding problems, no beds. When Prashant collapsed, within 30 seconds, there were four nurses, three doctors and a bed miraculously. So come out, and talk to me- I am the person who is suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niharika Sreekumar has retained legal council for a potential future lawsuit.<\/p>\n
With files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The widow of an Edmonton man who died waiting for care in an Edmonton emergency room is calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-534946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534946","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=534946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}