Family identifies man who died following hours-long wait in Winnipeg ER

A man who died while waiting for care in the emergency department at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre this week is being remembered by his family as an "absolutely brilliant" kid who in his adult years struggled to overcome battles with mental illness, addictions and homelessness.

Chad Christopher Giffin, 49, died after waiting about eight hours to be seen at Manitoba's largest hospital on Tuesday. His sister, Ronalee Reynolds, said she was contacted by the hospital on Friday morning confirming her brother was the man who died in the ER.

"He was absolutely brilliant. He was the smartest person I knew," Reynolds told CBC News over the phone Friday. "When he was 12 years old, he was writing computer programs. He won a science fair in junior high for building, from scratch, a motion-sensor alarm system. 

"And things have happened in his life that has turned him to having this severe mental health disorder and his way of coping, I suppose, was not recommended the way a doctor would recommend. And I think because of that … if he wasn't homeless, he was very, very close to it."

Officials previously identified Giffin only as a middle-aged man, and said his death would be investigated as a critical incident — defined by the province as a case where a patient suffers "serious and unintended harm" while receiving health care. Critical incident reviews involve a report with recommendations on how the system can improve to avoid similar incidents.

On Tuesday, Health Sciences Centre chief operating officer Dr. Shawn Young said the man now identified as Giffin was brought to the emergency room by ambulance shortly after midnight and was triaged as a low-acuity, or non-urgent, patient.

He was declared dead in a resuscitation room just before 8 a.m., after staff noticed his condition had worsened.

Young said the emergency room was well over capacity in the night leading up to the man's death, but staffing was close to a baseline level.

In November, the last month for which data is publicly available, HSC reported 10 per cent of patients waited more than 13 hours for care at its emergency department. The median wait time was 3.8 hours.

Reynolds said her brother had estranged himself from their family for close to a decade. The last time she was aware of exactly where he was staying was in 2018, when she was notified he'd been reported missing after walking away from the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, where she said he'd been taken several times.

During a sentencing hearing in 2020 following a run-in with the law, court heard Giffin at that time was homeless and often slept in shelters when they were available.

'We have a right to know'

Giffin's sister said she hopes the investigation into her brother's death will help answer the questions her family still has — from why he was brought to hospital by ambulance but assessed as low acuity, to what caused his death.

"Was it something that could have been prevented?" she said. "I think as soon as they know any of that information, we have a right to know."

Reynolds said she also wants to know how often hospital staff checked on her brother before they realized his condition had worsened so much.

"I would think that anything like this should never happen again. It's very disappointing," she said.

Giffin's case quickly drew comparisons with the death of Brian Sinclair, an Indigenous man who died after languishing for 34 hours in the same ER waiting room in 2008.

In 2017, a group of doctors and academics from across Canada said Sinclair was killed by racism, and the subsequent inquest into his death didn't address the real problem.

During that inquest, hospital workers said they'd assumed Sinclair was drunk and "sleeping it off," had been discharged with nowhere to go or was homeless and avoiding the cold.

Its final report concluded Sinclair's death was preventable and put forward 63 recommendations, including changing how patients in ERs are triaged and registered.

While news of the latest ER death in Winnipeg initially sparked questions about whether the man who died was also Indigenous, Reynolds said she and her brother were both adopted as infants and she isn't aware of either of them having any Indigenous ancestry.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said at a news conference Wednesday Giffin's case will be treated with the "highest level of urgency," and that the province will continue to work on health-care staffing and apply what is learned from the investigation into his death. A preliminary report is expected within the next couple of weeks.

Delay in contacting family

Reynolds said she also wants to know why it took the hospital several days to contact her to confirm her brother was the man who died in the ER after she inquired about his death earlier in the week.

She said she did that on Wednesday, after being contacted by CBC News about an incident involving her brother — which she said helped her deduce he was the one who died in the ER.

While the medical examiner's office told her someone with her brother's name and date of birth had died, it wasn't until Friday she got the confirmation she was looking for. 

Reynolds said she was informed her brother, who was under the care of the public guardian and trustee because of his mental illness and addictions, had told the office he had no next of kin. However, she said that office had previously been in touch with her when he'd gone missing from the Selkirk Mental Health Centre.

"He did have a family, and we do care, and we do love him. And we are going to miss him. We are going to mourn him," she said. "In my opinion, there is no excuse to why it took them four days to contact us."

CBC News has reached out to the province about why the the the public guardian and trustee's office hadn't been in touch with the family regarding Giffin's death. 

In a statement to CBC News Thursday, a Shared Health Spokesperson said Giffin's listed next of kin were notified by HSC officials Tuesday and that efforts to reach out to additional family were ongoing. 

Meanwhile, Reynolds said as her family waits for more details to be shared, she and her mother are spending time going through old photo albums and remembering how her brother used to be — not how their last encounters with him were.

She said she also hopes to see better supports for people struggling with mental health disorders, and changes that will help other people from dying the way her brother did.

"That's not why we ever go to an ER," she said. "We go there for help — and we don't want this to happen anymore."