'I can't stop crying': Cape Breton woman whose brother died following ER visit wants answers

Valerie Bobbett is demanding answers after her brother died following a visit to the Cape Breton Regional Hospital’s emergency department in Sydney, N.S.

Bobbett says her brother, 57-year-old James Hayes, was in severe pain when he first went to the ER in October and told the doctor it was on a scale higher than 10.

She says an X-ray was performed and he was sent home when nothing was found.

“’I’m going to send you home with Gravol,’ -- Gravol! Not even a painkiller,” Bobbett says. “He kept saying, ‘it feels like my stomach is being ripped apart.’ He never paid any attention to him. It was awful, absolutely awful.”

She says the pain continued for two weeks and became unbearable, so Hayes returned to the hospital.

A CT scan was performed, and Bobbett was there for the diagnosis.

“’We hate to deliver this news, its terrible news, but your bowel is dead and you can't live without a bowel.’ He looked up with me with those little blue eyes and started to cry,” she says.

Hayes died Oct. 25.

Bobbett feels her brother wasn't given the proper care, and now wants Nova Scotia Health to open an investigation into his death.

She wishes she had pushed doctors harder.

“I can't stop crying, I don't sleep, and it’s just awful. It's like I helped kill my brother,” she added.

In an email to CTV News Wednesday, a spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health said: "Due to privacy legislation we are unable to discuss specifics, however, as soon as we became aware of this situation we started a review of this person’s case. We attempted to reach the family to discuss and have asked they contact patient relations."

“So many people are telling me they had misgivings with that hospital and they'd rather never go there again, so it has to be stopped. Somebody has to do something,” said Bobbett. 

Valerie Bobbett looks at photos of her late brother, James Hayes, on her phone.