‘I was panicking’: Man claims he switched hospitals, learned he was having a heart attack

Alex Karpa shares a Winnipeg man's horrifying hospital experience and a warning from doctors that these kinds of incidents are occurring more often.

On July 10, 2022, Haimana Romana was experiencing terrible chest pain and decided he needed to go to the hospital.

“I can’t describe the pain,” he said. “You’re sweating. You can feel yourself drifting off because the pain is so severe.”

He went to Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre, where he was triaged and told to wait in the emergency room. He says an electrocardiogram (EKG) was done, and was given an aspirin, but claims no blood work was taken.

After two hours of waiting in the ER, his pain kept getting worse, and he says no one came to help him.

“You’re sitting there thinking, I’m going to die,” he said.

Romana was told by triage staff that his EKG was normal, but he said that couldn’t be possible, due to the extreme pain he was experiencing.

He realized he couldn’t wait any longer and left to get help elsewhere.

“I left and stumbled out of the HSC,” he said.

Romana said he got into the car with his wife, and they drove to Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Hospital about 12 minutes away.

Once he arrived at the ER, triage staff did an EKG and conducted a troponin test — which is a blood test that measures the level of proteins in the blood to help diagnose or rule out a heart attack, he says.

“It was five times over the limit,” he said.

He claims the staff at HSC did not conduct a troponin test during his two hours in the waiting room.

Within 15 minutes of arriving at St B., doctors told him he was having a STEMI heart attack — a blockage in a coronary artery — and needed immediate treatment.

“The surgeons and doctors and St. Boniface Hospital saved my life,” he said. “If my family hadn’t risked taking me to St. Boniface, I would have been dead.”

He remained in hospital for five days, but says that due to the severity of the situation, his heart now only pumps between 35-40 per cent, which has put him in heart failure.

“Once upon a time, I could ride my bike 20 kilometres and run 5 kilometres, but can’t do that now,” he said.

CTV News reached out to Shared Health, which oversees Manitoba’s largest hospital, HSC. A spokesperson said they are not allowed to comment on specific patient incidents, but they did provide context on how patients are triaged in the emergency room.

“Upon arrival to the Emergency Department, each patient is triaged and assigned a Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) score according to their presenting symptoms,” a statement reads. “Ongoing assessments in the waiting area are based on their CTAS score. The frequency of reassessments are adjusted based on any changes in the patient’s condition reported or observed by clinical staff.”

“Individuals may experience longer waits when there is high patient demand or when critically ill or injured patients require immediate attention.”

The CTAS score is based on a one-to-five rating to prioritize patients based on the urgency of their condition. This score determines how often they should be reassessed.

Level one is the most critical, essentially life-threatening, while Level five is the least urgent.

Romana says he was given a score of 2 when he checked himself into the ER at HSC.

He says he was required vital checks every 15 minutes and a doctor was supposed to see him right away, but he claims that did not happen.

Speed is crucial: Cardiologist

A STEMI heart attack is caused by a complete blockage in a coronary artery, which stops blood flow and damages the heart muscle.

Cardiologist Dr. Christopher Labos says someone presenting a STEMI heart attack should have their artery opened up within 90 minutes.

“People can misdiagnose, people can make mistakes, these sorts of things happen, but a STEMI is really one of the small number of situations where that person should be taken to the angiography theatre immediately,” he said.

“To have someone wait and have that type of delay, that is very unfortunate and not standard of care,” he said.

Dr. Labos says the sooner you open the blockage, the more of your heart function you can preserve.

“The longer you leave it, the more likely that heart muscle is to die, scar over and become non-functional for the rest of your life,” he said. “A heart attack is always serious, but when it’s completely blocked, it’s much more of an emergency in terms of the speed in which you need to intervene.”

‘You have to ask questions’

Romana has since filed several complaints against the hospital and plans to take his case to the courts.

He hopes his story will shed light on ongoing issues in the ER.

“Make sure that what you are feeling, abides with what they are saying to you,” he said. “You have to ask questions, you have to.”