Montfort Hospital, Ottawa, ON
. I brought my son (just turned 18) to the ER last Tuesday with all the classic signs of appendicitis. This is the first time I bring my son to the hospital and he’s in extreme pain. Because of covid rules, I wasn’t allowed to accompany my son inside the hospital even though he’s in extreme pain and on the verge of unconscientiousness. It took a couple hours to triage him. They gave him morphine and then proceeded to run an ultrasound, CT scan and blood test. It took 7 hours to see a doctor! My 18 year son is now left alone, in pain and on morphine to talk to a doctor without a parent there with him! This is criminal! They then admitted my son to the surgery section (5C) on tuesday night. On Wednesday, the message was we think he has appendicitis and we might operate later that day if it’s possible. Wednesdays is a no visitor day on 5c therefore my son is left to fend for himself. What kind of policy is this when Ontario is in stage 3 and there are only 8 people with Covid in all Ottawa hospitals? Wednesday comes and goes and on Thursday we talk to the surgeon Beaulieu and she says and they are confused about the appendicitis since it doesn’t appear swollen and he might have Crohn’s disease instead?! Also, she said that they had to wait for his covid test to come back negative in order to rule out Covid! Extreme right lower abdomen pain?!! Covid?! Are you kidding me?! Then she proceeds to tell us that they will operate on him after the scheduled surgery are done for the day! My son has to wait for knee and hip replacements to fix his Appendicitis?!! So 55 hours after walking into the ER, he finally gets his Appendectomy and his appendix had burst! This is why the Appendix didn’t appear swollen! How can a doctor not think of this? I’ll be looking into legal recourse for this because punishment needs to be given. Not only is it extreme negligence to wait 55 hours for an emergency appendectomy but a patient being admitted to ER in this condition and not being allowed an advocate for them is criminal and cruel. We’ve gone too far with these measures for Covid. Patients in a barely state of conscientiousness should be at least allowed a fully vaccinated and masked person to accompany them through the ER and present when talking to a doctor. When did hospitals stop being about the patient’s outcome? I urge everyone to avoid the Montfort hospital when dealing with an emergency.