Betty Lou Power continues to deal with the emotional scars from the horrific death of her husband, Robert Power. He died in an ER seven months ago. The event took place during a global pandemic. Today, she’s on a mission to find answers and fervently fighting for real change in the healthcare industry. Power isn’t doing this for the money – she’s doing it to spare other families the loss of a child like hers.
On the night of Robert’s death, Betty Lou Power witnessed her husband struggle for care amidst a crowded emergency room. All those elephants aside, she still recalls that night with great pride as 78 people showed up. Unfortunately, Robert waited nearly 10 hours before needing to be resuscitated after suffering from a fatal heart attack due to his COPD. The subsequent autopsy determined the medical cause of death. Betty Lou is committed to ensuring that it’s the systemic issues that led to this tragedy that are brought to light.
Hospital Communication Issues
After the incident Betty Lou Power says she was not told the truth about a meeting to discuss her husband’s care. Her primary hospital contact told her that there would be a meeting on November 5 to discuss what happened to Robert. For her, she feels like this communication was not transparent and has added to the trauma she’s still living through today. “I feel like I was deceived,” said Betty Lou, underscoring her outrage and feelings of betrayal by the way this has been addressed by our healthcare system.
Betty Lou is fighting back — and so should we all. She started an internal investigation with NL Health Services, which has already begun. She would like to know what happened to Robert in his last hours and plans on pursuing that. Further, she wants to make sure no one faces what she went through ever again. Her efforts underscore a systemic failure throughout our healthcare system on the plight of families trying to navigate the same challenges.
Advocacy for Systemic Change
Betty Lou’s advocacy goes beyond her own experience. As an accomplished politician herself, she picked up the phone to their new Premier, Tony Wakeham. She underscored the urgent crisis of ER congestion and workforce shortage. “We need to address these problems at their core,” she asserted, advocating for solutions that could alleviate pressure on emergency departments.
In the fight against these systemic barriers, Betty Lou has advocated for establishing a satellite clinic or urgent care center where she lives. Such measures could help divert non-critical cases away from emergency rooms, ensuring that patients with urgent needs receive timely care. These are common sense proposals, designed to encourage a more patient-centered, outcome-focused healthcare system where our patients’ wellbeing comes first.
