N.B. inquest: Jurors determine Fredericton man died of natural causes in ER waiting room

After roughly two hours of deliberations, the five jurors in the coroner’s inquest looking into the death of Darrell Mesheau have ruled he died in a natural manner, with the cause being heart failure.

The 78-year-old former diplomat died after waiting almost seven hours in the waiting room of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital emergency department. He had arrived at the hospital by ambulance, saying he was short of breath and weak, with little appetite.

Jurors heard he was triaged as level three and moved to the waiting room, where his vitals were not regularly checked. Nurses working that evening shared accounts of an overcrowded emergency department, where beds were entirely full – mostly with patients that should have been in other areas of the hospital.

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They were also short-staffed, and said they didn’t have time to regularly check the vitals of those in the waiting room.

Jurors made three recommendations:

• That all health and government agencies collaborate and “show ownership in the resolution of the bed-blockage issue; in particular, the backlog of social development patients having a significant effect on the efficiency of an operating emergency department.”
• That staff should be equipped with hand-held electronic sources to record patient vitals.
• And that eight recommendations found during Horizon Health’s internal investigation should be fully implemented, funded and delivered with appropriate staffing levels.

Some of those recommendations included certain health-care workers be hired specifically to monitor the well-being of patients in the waiting room, and they have adequate equipment for real-time assessment and documentation of vital signs.

According to an exhibit from Horizon Health, that recommendation has been implemented, although a Horizon clinical director confirmed during testimony those positions can be difficult to fill.

The jurors’ recommendations are not binding, but they are sent to the proper agencies who have six months to respond.

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