A 44-year-old Indian-origin man has died of suspected cardiac arrest after waiting for more than eight hours for treatment in a hospital’s emergency room area, a media report has said.<\/p>\n
Prashant Sreekumar began experiencing severe chest pains while at work on December 22, Global News reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
A client drove him to the Grey Nuns Hospital in southeast Edmonton, where Prashant was checked in at triage and then took a seat in the waiting room.<\/p>\n
His father, Kumar Sreekumar, soon arrived. \u201cHe told me, \u2018Papa, I cannot bear the pain,’\u201d Kumar said.<\/p>\n
Kumar said his son told him and hospital staff the pain was a 15 out of 10.<\/p>\n
They did an electrocardiogram (ECG) on him to check his heart’s function, but the family said Prashant was told there was nothing of significance and to keep waiting.<\/p>\n
Staff also offered Prashant some Tylenol for his pain.<\/p>\n
He waited, and waited some more.<\/p>\n
Kumar said as time passed, nurses would check Prashant’s blood pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went up, up, and up. To me, it was through the roof.\u201d More than eight hours went by before Prashant was called into the treatment area.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter sitting maybe 10 seconds, he looked at me, he got up and put his hand on his chest and just crashed,\u201d Kumar said.<\/p>\n
Nurses called for help but it was too late. Prashant died of an apparent cardiac arrest, the report added.<\/p>\n
Prashant leaves behind his wife, and three children ages three, 10 and 14. The family loved to travel together and said Prashant was a \u201cgoofball\u201d with his kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was for his family, for his kids, he was so nice. Anybody who talked to him said, \u2018We don’t know a man better than him\u2019,\u201d Kumar said.<\/p>\n
Family and friends want answers over how a man with severe chest pain could fall through the cracks in such a shocking way.<\/p>\n
Family friend Varinder Bhullar, who would use Prashant’s accounting services, said it was a huge loss for the community. He is devastated at what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect better from the hospital and health-care system,\u201d Bhullar said.<\/p>\n
The Grey Nuns Hospital is run by Covenant Health.<\/p>\n
The organisation told Global News in an email that it wouldn’t comment on the specifics surrounding patient care because of privacy, but did say the case is before the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe offer our sympathy to the patient’s family and friends. There is nothing more important than the safety and care of our patients and staff,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
As family try to remember Prashant for all the good he brought them, they say they will always be haunted by how he died in pain \u2014 in a hospital \u2014 without ever seeing a doctor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took my baby for nothing. For nothing,\u201d Kumar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 44-year-old Indian-origin man has died of suspected cardiac arrest after waiting for more than eight hours for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[124096,124097,124098,124099,124100,124101,68940,124102,134,527,124103,111,139,69,124104],"class_list":{"0":"post-202504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-edmontonnews","9":"tag-emergencyroom","10":"tag-greynunshospital","11":"tag-healthcarefail","12":"tag-hospitalwaitingtimes","13":"tag-unexpecteddeath","14":"tag-cardiacarrest","15":"tag-chestpain","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-healthcare","18":"tag-indianorigin","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-patientsafety"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}