Senior with influenza waited 90 hours in Edmonton emergency department, family says

Carla Peck didn’t think to pack more than a change of clothes and slippers for her 79-year-old dad who was rushed to an Edmonton hospital with what she learned was a serious influenza infection. She imagined it might be hours before he was seen, not days.

But for more than 90 hours − nearly four full days − her dad was confined to a stretcher in an overflow area of the emergency department waiting room, and briefly in the actual ED, at the University of Alberta Hospital. Ms. Peck said her father’s health deteriorated as he was immobilized in bed, unable to comfortably rest, use the washroom or eat without help.