I've been in hospitals around the world. Canada was the only place I slept in a hallway

I've been in hospitals around the world. Canada was the only place I slept in a hallway

Through decades of travelling, I found ER visits elsewhere were measured in minutes, not hours

This First Person is the experience of Mike Sluchinski, who lives in Saskatoon. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

When I woke up one morning in early July, I had no idea that day would end with me parked in a hospital bed in a hallway at Royal University Hospital (RUH) in Saskatoon, hearing the screams of other patients.

Of course, I had heard stories about the decline of health care and wait times in hospitals in Canada and in Saskatchewan. Stories about people spending days waiting for care in hospital hallways seemed unreal most of the time, because they weren’t happening to me — that is, until it was.

I spent a long painful night thinking about the speedy care I'd received in countries from South Korea to Italy to Tanzania. Here in my own country, after hours of being in a crowded ER with patients who were in dire conditions, the staff told me I was lucky that it was a slow day.

I'd started feeling like something was wrong around lunch and the pain had gotten worse, so I headed to an emergency room. I drove as fast as safety allowed to get to RUH in Saskatoon.

After getting lost in the maze of hallways, security guards stopped me to check my bag until I barked at them that I needed to get into the ER fast.

After hours of waiting in the emergency room and being monitored by doctors and nurses, staff parked me next to a bathroom around a corner.

We donned masks after my wife and I had overheard a conversation that a patient in a nearby room might have an infection that could possibly be airborne or infectious. Apparently containment measures were in place, but the day instantly went from bad to worse. You hear a lot of stuff in the hallways of a hospital — most of it bad.

I had to convince my wife she had to leave. She didn't need to stay the night in the hallway, especially with the potential risk of an infection, and we were both exhausted.

But there was no peace for me that night. People constantly moved through rooms and the hallway. The ceiling stared back at me. I heard cries in the night coming from those in the rooms. The toilet was a popular spot and the door was constantly opening and closing. It was almost like being in a freight yard with cattle cars rumbling, bumping and waking me up every hour.

Hospitals around the world show a different standard

Every time I woke up, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that I was in one of those health-care horror stories. I've travelled and lived all around the world, and as a result, I've spent time in hospitals in Europe, Africa and several countries in Asia. In those places, my experience has been ER wait times were measured in minutes, not hours.

One of the first nights I ever spent in a hospital was in a general ward in Rome in the early 1970s. It was a large but clean room with six-feet windows that let in natural light.

When I had to visit hospitals in Tanzania and Kenya in the 1970s, I was impressed how Africans from different tribes and religions worked together to provide care that was personal and professional. Many of the doctors and nurses had been trained in the U.K. and India. I was in and out of hospitals in those countries quickly.

I found hospitals in Seoul, South Korea, to be sanitary and well-equipped. There was almost no waiting period when I went to an emergency room and even minor sprains or other problems got immediate attention. Despite my basic level of health insurance in Korea, I paid very little for an overnight stay in a private double room in the 2000s.

In the last 20 years, my wife and I have continued to travel to places like Korea, Singapore and Malaysia, and while we haven’t been in hospitals overnight, we’ve been able to get amazing and affordable care in Asia.

Given the taxes we pay in Canada, I’m still having a hard time believing that the only hospital where I was forced to sleep in a hallway was in Saskatoon.

I’m grateful for the care I received from the doctors and nurses who took care of me, but I also felt sorry for them. Most of the team had been working for hours. I had seen many of the same faces for over 10 hours. They looked exhausted. It’s not a stretch to say they were being pushed to their limits in a broken health-care system.

Even after leaving the hospital, the delays have continued as I'm once again in a different kind of hallway: a long waiting list to get a basic test completed. Nurses and nurse practitioners have made calls and tried to get information on how long it will take for me to see a specialist, but the list seems to be the list. I still face a two to three month wait to get further testing done.

This is worse than hurry up and wait. It’s simply wait and pay high taxes that aren’t consistent with the level of care.

I'm appalled that the only place I was ever warehoused in a hospital hallway was in my own country and the city in which I grew up.

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Mike Sluchinski lives in Saskatoon and writes about the world. When he's not writing poetry and non-fiction or travelling, he's often open water swimming and picking Saskatoon berries in the bush. He practices Shinrin-yoku, bowl meditation and is still on a waiting list for care in Saskatchewan's health-care system.