When Grant Jordan began showing the signs of a heart attack, he headed straight away to his local hospital. But the Sussex, N.B.
, man arrived at the Sussex Health Centre 18 minutes after the ER had closed for the night. “I got out of the car and I walked up to the door and they said, ‘We’re closed,'” he recalled. “And I said, ‘I think I’m having a heart attack.
’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re closed, but we can call 911 for you.’ And so they did, but they wouldn’t let me in.” It turned out Jordan was indeed suffering a heart attack, and needed emergency surgery.
He says some hospital staff members assisted him as he waited 12 minutes for an ambulance in the hospital’s parking lot. “You’re kind of scared at that point, you know?” he said. Jordan was transported to the Saint John Regional Hospital, where he had two stents put in.
Hospital ERs on reduced hours When the incident happened on Aug. 31, the ER at the Sussex Health Centre had had its hours temporarily reduced for 18 months already. It was only open from 8 a.
m. to 8:30 p.m.
— leaving those in the area to make the 45-minute drive to Saint John or 50-minute drive to Moncton. Jordan’s wife, Naomi, says the reduced hours have left the community in a precarious situation. “(They’re) saying, ‘We’re closed’ to a heart attack or stroke or someone going into a really serious bout of anaphylactic shock,” she said.
“(Those patients) don’t have the luxury of coming back in the mor.