A 44-year-old Indian-origin man has died after waiting for several hours in the emergency room of a hospital in Edmonton, Canada, sparking grief and serious questions about emergency healthcare response times.
The deceased, identified as Prashant Sreekumar, a father of three, began experiencing severe chest pain while at work on Monday, December 22. A client drove him to the Grey Nuns Hospital in southeast Edmonton, where he was registered at triage and asked to wait in the emergency room.
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According to his family, Prashant repeatedly told hospital staff that his pain was extreme, rating it “15 out of 10.” His father, Kumar Sreekumar, arrived shortly after and said his son had made both staff and family aware of the severity of his condition. An electrocardiogram (ECG) was performed to assess his heart function, but the family claims Prashant was informed that nothing significant was found and was told to continue waiting.
Over the next several hours, nurses periodically checked his blood pressure, which Kumar said continued to rise. “It went up, up, and up. To me, it was through the roof,” he recalled. Despite his worsening condition, Prashant reportedly waited more than eight hours before being called into the treatment area.
Tragically, shortly after entering the treatment room, Prashant collapsed. “After sitting maybe 10 seconds, he looked at me, he got up, put his hand on his chest, and just crashed,” his father said. Medical staff attempted to respond, but Prashant was pronounced dead, with an apparent cardiac arrest cited as the cause.
Prashant is survived by his wife and three children, aged three, 10, and 14. The Grey Nuns Hospital is operated by Covenant Health. In a statement to Global News, the organisation said it could not comment on specific patient care details due to privacy laws but confirmed the case is under review by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. “We offer our sympathy to the patient’s family and friends. There is nothing more important than the safety and care of our patients and staff,” the statement read.
