A woman says she was stuck in a Moncton hospital waiting room for nearly nine hours after crashing her car on Wednesday.
The accident happened just a few minutes from Alice Ibbitson’s home. Her car left the road and struck a culvert head on.
Ibbitson says she’s still feeling the effects.
“I hit the gravel and when I heard that I hit the gravel, I didn't even have time to get up,” says Ibbitson. “I lifted my head and I was already in the ditch.”
People from nearby homes came to help and called 911. Ibbitson was transported by ambulance to the Georges Dumont Hospital in Moncton, arriving shortly after 12:30 p.m.
Ibbitson has worked at the hospital for 28 years.
“Nobody checked me out so they made me get off the stretcher and they said take a number, like everybody else, and go through the triage,” she says.
Ibbiston had a bump on her head, a red mark on her stomach from the airbag, lower back pain and a burn on her collarbone from the seatbelt. Complicating the situation is that she has stage 4 lung cancer, which she says is terminal.
Eight-and-a-half hours after arriving at the hospital, Ibbitson's number was called.
“Once the doctor seen my chart he was very, very upset,” she says. “He apologized 10 times, that I shouldn't have been there.”
The health authority says it doesn't discuss individual cases, but did send CTV News the following statement:
“All patients who come to our emergency rooms are sorted with the help of a triage nurse based on the severity of their illness or injury. That being said, priority is not necessarily given to ambulances.”
Ibbitson filed a formal complaint against the hospital Friday morning, saying she doesn't want anyone else to go through what she did.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.
