Changes sought after dad chokes to death in Regina hospital

Luhr’s family watched as doctors tried to determine what was wrong with him. As tests were going on, his daughters claim he slowly starved.

“They weren’t giving him proper nutrients so he kept getting weaker and weaker and losing weight,” said Urszulan.

He was being fed liquid through a tube in his abdomen, referred to as a PEG, but his family said he didn’t receive all of his feedings.

In early January, he was put in a room his daughters claim was a converted janitor’s closet on a transitional ward instead of an acute care ward, without their knowledge. The ward included patients suffering from dementia and waiting for long-term care placement.

On the evening of Jan. 6, 2014, during one of Luhr’s feedings, he began to choke. Liquid had gone up into his throat and into his lungs. Unable to speak, the senior found a pen and paper and wrote down “suction” for the health staff.

Urszulan and Bandorf explained how the staff couldn’t get the suction device to work. They said that particular ward didn’t have a crash cart. The family asked for nurses to call Code Blue, but because of the ward’s patients, an access door was locked and the Code Blue team had difficulty getting in.

By the time the Code Blue team arrived, it was too late.

“My father died. He choked to death,” said Urszulan, with tears in her eyes.

“Help should have been immediate and equipment should have been working and functioning.”

“There were so many things that went wrong that shouldn’t have gone wrong,” added Bandorf.

“He shouldn’t have had to die such a horrific death.”

His daughters said the former printer and farmer was fine before his swallowing issues started. He had no problem walking or running. Two months later Luhr was dead.

The RQHR has apologized to Luhr’s family since his death last year, saying in a letter to the family: “We feel that we have failed Earl and his family in a time when we were most needed. For that we are truly sorry.”

RQHR looked into this as a critical incident and have since made some changes internally within the health region. They changed the way orders are written for tube feeding and the way they are administered by the care aid.

The region maintains that it is working to review its processes and procedures to see what improvements can be made.

Health Minister Dustin Duncan is also committed to meeting with the family to find out what went wrong and how it can be corrected so something like this never happens again.

As far as Luhr’s daughters are concerned, they want critical incidents reported properly. They want all nurses trained to administer tube feeding on every ward. The sisters also want to ensure equipment works and staff know how to operate it.

Urszulan wants other families to learn from their tragic situation.

“Speak up. Be their advocate for them. If you think something’s not right say it because I feel really bad that I didn’t fight more at the time for him while he was in there,” she said.

“I do want closure and we do want to ensure that this doesn’t happen to anybody again.”

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow

by Kevin Martel

Changes sought after dad chokes to death in Regina hospital

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