Kristi Meredith says her three-year-old daughter had a raging fever, swollen face, body rash and tell-tale signs of scarlet fever but waited 14 hours at Victoria General Hospital’s emergency department before she was seen by a doctor.
That wait came after an initial three-hour wait in the ER the same morning and 1.5 hours on hold in a failed attempt to get an appointment at an urgent and primary care centre.
“Families shouldn’t have to wait 14 hours for care, especially when young children are involved,” Meredith wrote in a letter to B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne.
Meredith said she and her husband, Joshua Coutts, and their two toddlers rarely need to use emergency services given their “amazing” family doctor, but daughter Parker’s illness intensified just three days before Christmas.
Meredith was on antibiotics for strep throat. Scarlet fever is a bacterial infection associated with strep throat. So when Parker’s cold symptoms persisted and her fever kept bouncing to about 103.9 F, despite being given fever-reducing medication, her parents became concerned.
On the morning of Dec. 22, they took Parker to Victoria General’s ER.
She had swollen eyes and face, a body rash and what Meredith thought was a strawberry-looking tongue.
The family waited three hours to be told “it’s definitely not” scarlet fever, a throat swab wasn’t needed, but to return in 48 hours if Parker’s symptoms worsened.
That night, Parker’s fever spiked to 104.5 and she started vomiting.
The couple returned with their children to Victoria General at about 8 p.m.
After waiting four hours in the general ER, the family asked to move to the pediatric emergency wait room at about midnight. It appeared to be similarly crowded with non-pediatric patients, said Meredith.
After a total of 14 hours, the toddler was seen, the physician suspected scarlet fever, performed a swab and prescribed an antibiotic as a precaution.
Island Health said a full complement of physicians were on duty Dec. 22 and the average time from triage to seeing a physician was almost five hours.
Between Dec. 22, 2024, and Jan. 2, 2025, the average time from triage to seeing a physician at Victoria General Hospital was four hours 19 minutes. On average, 160 people visited the Victoria General Hospital’s ER each day.
The Health Ministry said emergency department volumes are high at hospitals throughout B.C. and Canada, and emergency departments are especially busy now during the respiratory illness season.
The hospital assured the couple it would call if Parker's test came back positive, said Meredith “but no one ever called.
“Two days later, we reached out to the hospital, hoping for some answers, but were told we couldn’t access the results without consulting a doctor,” she said.
Attempts to access their daughter’s lab results through an appointment with a telehealth doctor and via their children’s Health Gateway accounts also failed to yield results.
Again, Meredith was reassured the hospital would contact them if the swab came back positive but another two days passed with no update, she said. Seven days after the couple’s hospital visit, the family’s doctor confirmed the test was positive for scarlet fever.
The parents say the overworked health-care workers were great and doing their best but the wait and lack of communication was deeply concerning and they worry for families who don’t have a family doctor and have to rely on urgent health-care services.
Island Health said in some instances the emergency department will contact patients with test results after discharge to ensure follow-up, typically when the results change the clinical advice.
“All we wanted was to understand what was going on with our daughter so we could care for her properly, and also monitor our 1.5-year-old child,” Meredith said in her letter to the minister.
“No parent should have to navigate this level of uncertainty and frustration while their child is sick, or have them sleeping on a hard seat for hours while fighting a serious bacterial infection.”
Island Health performance measures released in June showed 5.3 per cent of patients seeking care in a hospital emergency department — registered and triaged — leave before they are seen by a physician.
The health authority’s 2023-2024 target is less than or equal to two per cent and in the same document says its performance on this measure is “significantly outside acceptable range.”
That was the case for Maidra Creswell, 83, who said the estimated wait time on the board at Victoria General’s emergency department when she arrived on Dec. 29 was 16 hours and 29 minutes.
Such estimates are based on the previous two hours, according to Island Health, which may or may not represent the circumstances, staffing or complexity of cases.
“I managed to speak to an admissions person between patients and ask if she had any idea how long before I’d be seen,” said Creswell. “She looked at the chart and said ‘that’s accurate’."
Creswell, who hasn’t had a family doctor for a decade, was visiting 91原创 on Dec. 23 after a week of her right leg going numb, her foot dragging and her leg failing to support her.
She experienced a severe episode in 91原创 and went to Lion’s Gate Hospital emergency where she was diagnosed as having a transient ischemic attack, a short period of symptoms similar to a stroke, and was given medication.
Creswell arrived back in Victoria on Dec. 26 having had five episodes on the ferry and headed straight to Victoria General’s emergency department at 9:40 p.m. where she had tests. At 7:45 a.m. the next morning, she saw a doctor who referred her to a stroke clinic.
On the morning of Dec. 29 she felt “horrible” and called an ambulance but after waiting some time at Victoria General’s ER again and seeing the wait time was estimated to be in excess of 16 hours she felt she could ill afford losing another night’s sleep or picking up a respiratory infection from the waiting room.
Creswell said she told staff that she couldn’t wait and was told “that was her choice.” She called the excessive wait times “horrid.”
Island Health said it is working to improve ER wait times as well as trying to prevent unnecessary visits through increased access to primary care, and access to health care information such as HealthLink BC (phone 811).
The health authority said anyone in need of critical care has priority and those classified as requiring resuscitation and emergency care “do not wait to receive care.”
Creswell said she strongly agrees that emergency cases, sick babies and people in pain should be a first priority, but left hospital feeling that as an 83-year-old with no family doctor and a threatened stroke that she was at the bottom of the triage system. “I find this very sad,” she said.
The Ministry of Health said: “We cannot comment on specific patient cases to protect patient privacy and confidentiality, however we understand the frustration that long wait times in the emergency department can cause. This is why we are working hard to strengthen not only acute care, but also primary care, by bringing new doctors and nurse practitioners into the province, and by training more healthcare workers here in British Columbia.”
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