An emergency room is blowing the whistle about the deterioration of affections in hospitals administered by the BC Fraser Health Authority, claiming in a demand that her work was threatened after she and other doctors sought to warn patients about a potentially dangerous situation.
Kaitlin Stockton has worked in emergency rooms at the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster and Eagle Ridge Hospital in Port Moody since October 2017, where he affirms that the rapid decrease in the last two years has led to “patient care” increasingly insecure and childish. “
He sat with CBC News to expose the detailed concerns in the demand, which include the alleged rejection of the health authority of a plea of implementing a protocol of mass victims after the alleged attack at the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival in Vancouver.
“Patients are falling through the cracks and will continue to fall through the cracks unless something changes,” she says.
“Knowing that he is not giving attention to someone who needs it is a horrible feeling, it is not how I was trained and it is not what patients deserve.”
A fateful change
Stockton filed a civil claim notice against Fraser’s health authority in the BC Supreme Court last week, looking for $ 500,000 for unjustified dismissal and damage for what she states is a “high -hand, arrogant and derogatory” behavior.
The demand paints an image of a toxic work environment, where burned medical professionals support violent aggressions of patients and fear reprisals for speaking publicly.
Stockton says that his concern for the collapse of the system now overcomes his fear of speaking.
An emergency doctor is blowing the whistle about what she says they are deteriorating the conditions in two emergency rooms in the BC Fraser health authority and claiming that her work was threatened after warning patients about a potentially dangerous situation. Michelle Ghoussoub reports.
CBC News has seen a letter signed by the 50 doctors in the BC emergency room that claim that they support stockwalk’s dedication to advocate for high quality patient care. ” They also ask for improvements in the emergency care system, transparency and responsibility for Fraser Health and say they require a workplace that is “free of psychological damage.”
While the letter says that doctors are not commenting on the specific accusations in the demand of Stockton, he says they support their right to follow legal actions against Fraser Health.
Fraser Health told CBC News that he does not comment on the issues before the courts.
In a written response to CBC News, BC Health Minister Josie Osborne also said he could not comment on the details of the case because it was before the courts.
“Speaking more generally, it is essential that health workers throughout the province feel that they can raise concerns in the workplace to their employer,” Osborne added.
“Listening directly to first -line workers is fundamental while we work together to strengthen public medical care in BC”
According to Stockton’s demand, her experience culminated in a turn, on November 18, 2024, when she and other medical staff chose to warn patients that the Eagle Ridge Hospital emergency room was reaching a break point.
Stockton says that as his change progressed, the conditions became “very insecure” when the patients spilled in the halls and packed the waiting room.
The doctors in the turn communicated with a series of high -level leaders, asking for a series of measures, including the discharge of patients to different areas of the hospital, canceling elective surgeries and deviant ambulances.
But those requests were supposedly denied.
With the conditions in the spiral of the emergency room, the demand states that doctors plotted a plan. With the approval of a local department leader, Stockton and his colleagues decided to publish a warning signal to patients that the hospital had resources and patients who needed attention would face long delays, says the demand.
The sign called “unacceptable” waiting times and urged patients to contact the provincial government.
“The sign was shared on social networks by patients, and two media published a story about the sign,” says the demand.
“Instead of taking the time to reflect and assume the responsibility of their inaction, which finally contributed to serious damage to the patient and moral injuries among the personnel who work that day, [the health authority] He issued a press statement by calling the ‘false’ sign.
‘Extremely angry’ executives
The demand alleges that after Fraser Health obtained images of Stockton CCTV placing the sign, they used it to “without highlighting and threatening it.”
She states that they told her that Fraser Health executives were “extremely angry” on the sign and “were in fact trying to hold Dr. Stockton for it.”
Stockton states that the medical director of the Eagle Ridge hospital threatened to revoke the privileges of her hospitals and present a complaint against her if she did not write an apology that admitted irregularities.
The demand alleges that Stockton was fired through the “constructive dismissal”, when an employer’s actions force an employee to resign.
Stockton states that no questions were asked about the conditions in the emergency room that led doctors to take action.
Instead, they told him that “he had no right to put the sign.
“This is extremely common, this happens all the time. It happens to nurses and doctors, and that is why the public does not have the truth about what is happening in our hospitals with public funds, in our emergency rooms,” he says.
“Even when we pray and ask for help collectively, there was no one. We feel helpless see patients in the waiting room suffering, even though we were asking for help.”
‘One of those dreams where you are shouting for help’
The lawsuit also states that Fraser Health has not responded to the calls of help doctors and sought to silence the staff that talked about the conditions.
For example, he says that the health authority sent letters of cessation and withdrawal to doctors in 2023 after they requested more transparency around congestion in emergency rooms and, on another occasion, suspended and investigated a nurse who advocated better security protocols after being attacked by a patient who wielded a model.
It is alleged that the most profile example occurs on April 26, after the alleged attack of the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival in Vancouver, which left 11 dead people and dozens more wounded.
The Royal Columbian Hospital, one of the two specialized trauma centers dedicated in BC, was allegedly notified that “they would receive up to 10 patients with critical injuries.”
“Knowing that this would overwhelm the resources already stretched from the hospital, the doctors who work at that time repeatedly requested that the hospital administrator activated an orange code,” says the demand.
An orange code is a protocol that allows emergency rooms to respond urgently to disaster events and massive victims evacuating patients to other hospital areas and bring additional staff to help triando.
The demand states that Fraser Health denied the request for an orange code.
Stockton told CBC News that he fears that a lower attention standard is normal if change is not implemented.
“It feels like one of those dreams in which you are shouting for help, but no sound will come out. And it simply exhausts life after a while,” she says.
“At first you get very angry, but after a while seeing the same thing again and again, you run out of hope.”
‘Extremely insecure for patients’
Demand says that working conditions in the two hospitals are “unpleasant, unworthy and extremely insecure” for patients, which sometimes result in the loss of lives.
“Multiple entries of the patient safety and learning system have been initiated due to serious and preventable damage, including overcrowding deaths,” says the civil claim notice.
“The hospitals now operate routinely with four to six shifts of emergency doctors without filling per day,” reads. He alleges that the waiting times have triggered: “Now it reaches routinely from 10 to 14 hours.”
The demand also states that there have been a series of violent incidents in hospitals.
In January 2025, a man pushing the machete entered the emergency room at the Eagle Ridge hospital and threatened a nurse.
In separate attacks, the demand states that patients have strangled, kicked and attacked nurses who have suffered a jaw, a brain shock and broken ribs.
Supposedly, he was also allowed a great Pit Bull in the emergency room of the Eagle Ridge hospital for hours in April, attacking a doctor and biting his arm.
“These events are so common that they are normalized and are rarely recognized by the management and leadership of the FHA,” the demand alleges.
TO June 2025 report From the Economic Institute of Montreal, he found that Eagle Ridge Hospital has some of the waiting times of the longest emergency room among the Vancouver subway hospitals.
According to a report published in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, long waiting times in emergency The rooms in Canada contribute to thousands of deaths per year.
“Patients are dying while waiting for attention. In my experience and the experience of my colleagues, this is happening in BC,” says Stockton, who adds the Herculean efforts of the first -line staff that maintain emergency rooms together.
“Our emergency system is failing, and first -line suppliers cannot talk about it.”
