On June 30th 2016, I got into a biking accident, where my bike tire slipped on the street car tracks near Liberty Village in Toronto. I landed face first, hit my head (I was luckily wearing a helmet) and injured my left wrist.

I went to Toronto Western to get my wrist looked after. As per the X-rays, I had a fractured Ulna Styloid so they put me in a plaster cast right away without putting it back into place. They then referred me to the fracture clinic and told me they would call me within a week. As I was full of adrenaline and was not thinking straight, I did not think about asking which fracture clinic they would refer me to or to ask for the clinic’s number.

A week went by, and I still did not receive a call. Another week past without being contacted so I decided to go back to the emergency room at Toronto Western on July 15th as my plastered cast was very loose and was doing more harm than good at this point. The doctors could not do anything as the fracture clinic had to be the ones to assess it. I asked them to give me a new cast but they said it was fine the way is was although it was clearly loose.  Luckily, they were nice enough to provide me with the fracture clinic’s contact information and told me to call them first thing the following Monday.

On July 18th, I called them as instructed but the line went straight to voicemail. At this point, my cast was loose enough to easily slip out of it and I could also fit my right hand in. The next day, a lady from the fracture clinic calls me back and got me an appointment for July 20th- 3 weeks after my accident.

The doctor comes in the room at the time of my appointment, looks at my X-Rays, and before the cast was off and he could take a look at it, he tells me he is referring me to the Hand Clinic. The doctor writes the referral and I was put in a new fibre glass cast. I asked the nurse for the clinic’s number as I did not want to slip in the cracks again. She told me I would get a call by July 22nd.

To my surprise, I did not receive a call. On July 25th, I called the clinic in the morning, I got their voicemail so I left them a message asking them to take me in as soon as possible. I called again in the afternoon, but the receptionist informed me they did not receive my referral from the fracture clinic and told me to call them to arrange it again. I then called the fracture clinic and again, got their voicemail and left them a message.

After several messages left for both clinics, a medical office assistant from the hand clinic calls to make an appointment. The earliest he could get me in was August 8^th (6 weeks after my accident and when the cast was due to come off). I told him this was simply unacceptable and explained to him that my wrist is not healing properly at this point and I needed to come in sooner. He then had to verify with the hand doctor and call me back. A day goes by without hearing from him so I then had to call him back and leave another message. A day and half later, he calls me back and was able to book me in for August 3^rd and not sooner.

The day of my appointment at the hand clinic – or 5 weeks after my accident, the specialist, and the intern did some tests and of course, my range of motion was minimal and my wrist was very stiff as it did not heal properly. The doctor told me that she would have originally put me in a full elbow cast and my issue could have been resolved even if she had seen me two weeks prior!

 So what is the resolution? Surgery! And after surgery, I will be in another full cast up to my elbow for 6 weeks. In summary, my condition could have been healed within 6-8 weeks but instead, I do not see myself fully healed until the end of October 2016. – That’s only if the surgery goes well and that timeframe does not include the physiotherapy that I will need to go through after the procedure.

Now there is no sense of complaining in order to get something done because, the damage is already done. But could this have been avoided? Absolutely! Who’s to blame? Is it the emergency room? The Fracture Clinic or the Hand Clinic? Is it the doctors or the medical office assistants’ faults? Is this a health care system issue or a Toronto Western Hospital issue? Since someone clearly did not do his or her job, I now have take time off work, cancel a vacation and fit physiotherapy in my busy schedule. And as for the hospital and our health care system, they must now pay for a surgeon to perform this procedure on my wrist. No wonder our healthcare system is costing so much for our government! We taxpayers and consumers must pay for the healthcare providers’ mistakes in a financial and physical way! It’s situations like this that causes me to lose faith in our health care system!

I am a healthy 22 year old female. Because of a simple mistake that could have been looked after 2-3 weeks, ago, I now have a long journey ahead of me. You hear about this sort of issue happen to other people but for this to happen to myself, is hard to understand how this could have been easily avoided.

Sincerely,

Broken, frustrated, and overwhelmed.

Andrea Labonte

On June 30th 2016, I got into a biking accident, where my bike tire slipped on the street car tracks near Liberty Village in Toronto. I landed face first, hit my head (I was luckily wearing a helmet) and injured my left wrist.

I went to Toronto Western to get my wrist looked after. As per the X-rays, I had a fractured Ulna Styloid so they put me in a plaster cast right away without putting it back into place. They then referred me to the fracture clinic and told me they would call me within a week. As I was full of adrenaline and was not thinking straight, I did not think about asking which fracture clinic they would refer me to or to ask for the clinic’s number.

A week went by, and I still did not receive a call. Another week past without being contacted so I decided to go back to the emergency room at Toronto Western on July 15th as my plastered cast was very loose and was doing more harm than good at this point. The doctors could not do anything as the fracture clinic had to be the ones to assess it. I asked them to give me a new cast but they said it was fine the way is was although it was clearly loose.  Luckily, they were nice enough to provide me with the fracture clinic’s contact information and told me to call them first thing the following Monday.

On July 18th, I called them as instructed but the line went straight to voicemail. At this point, my cast was loose enough to easily slip out of it and I could also fit my right hand in. The next day, a lady from the fracture clinic calls me back and got me an appointment for July 20th- 3 weeks after my accident.

The doctor comes in the room at the time of my appointment, looks at my X-Rays, and before the cast was off and he could take a look at it, he tells me he is referring me to the Hand Clinic. The doctor writes the referral and I was put in a new fibre glass cast. I asked the nurse for the clinic’s number as I did not want to slip in the cracks again. She told me I would get a call by July 22nd.

To my surprise, I did not receive a call. On July 25th, I called the clinic in the morning, I got their voicemail so I left them a message asking them to take me in as soon as possible. I called again in the afternoon, but the receptionist informed me they did not receive my referral from the fracture clinic and told me to call them to arrange it again. I then called the fracture clinic and again, got their voicemail and left them a message.

After several messages left for both clinics, a medical office assistant from the hand clinic calls to make an appointment. The earliest he could get me in was August 8^th (6 weeks after my accident and when the cast was due to come off). I told him this was simply unacceptable and explained to him that my wrist is not healing properly at this point and I needed to come in sooner. He then had to verify with the hand doctor and call me back. A day goes by without hearing from him so I then had to call him back and leave another message. A day and half later, he calls me back and was able to book me in for August 3^rd and not sooner.

The day of my appointment at the hand clinic – or 5 weeks after my accident, the specialist, and the intern did some tests and of course, my range of motion was minimal and my wrist was very stiff as it did not heal properly. The doctor told me that she would have originally put me in a full elbow cast and my issue could have been resolved even if she had seen me two weeks prior!

 So what is the resolution? Surgery! And after surgery, I will be in another full cast up to my elbow for 6 weeks. In summary, my condition could have been healed within 6-8 weeks but instead, I do not see myself fully healed until the end of October 2016. – That’s only if the surgery goes well and that timeframe does not include the physiotherapy that I will need to go through after the procedure.

Now there is no sense of complaining in order to get something done because, the damage is already done. But could this have been avoided? Absolutely! Who’s to blame? Is it the emergency room? The Fracture Clinic or the Hand Clinic? Is it the doctors or the medical office assistants’ faults? Is this a health care system issue or a Toronto Western Hospital issue? Since someone clearly did not do his or her job, I now have take time off work, cancel a vacation and fit physiotherapy in my busy schedule. And as for the hospital and our health care system, they must now pay for a surgeon to perform this procedure on my wrist. No wonder our healthcare system is costing so much for our government! We taxpayers and consumers must pay for the healthcare providers’ mistakes in a financial and physical way! It’s situations like this that causes me to lose faith in our health care system!

I am a healthy 22 year old female. Because of a simple mistake that could have been looked after 2-3 weeks, ago, I now have a long journey ahead of me. You hear about this sort of issue happen to other people but for this to happen to myself, is hard to understand how this could have been easily avoided.

Sincerely,

Broken, frustrated, and overwhelmed.

Andrea Labonte

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