St. Mary's hospital crtitized for 'lack of planning' in death of vascular patient

Quebec coroner is criticizing St. Mary’s Hospital for a “lack of planning and organization” that she concludes contributed to the death of a Montreal man one year ago.

Mark Blandford, 73, was diagnosed with a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm – known as a triple-A rupture – by emergency room physicians at St. Mary’s in November 2015.  He died on the operating table, 20 minutes into surgery, after being transferred to the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC).
At the time, Dr. Carl Emond, the sole vascular surgeon at St. Mary’s, said he had been told repeatedly by the hospital’s senior administrators that he was no longer authorized to do triple-A rupture surgeries as part of the reorganization of the hospital’s services.
He had no choice but to transfer Blandford to the MUHC’s Glen site, he said.
Patients’ rights lawyer Jean-Pierre Ménard said a doctor’s obligation to act, even in defiance of hospital orders, outweighs all other considerations in a life-and-death situation.
Ménard said that had Blandford gotten the surgery at St Mary’s, he would have had a chance of survival.
Source: CBC