Cancer patient left on the hospital floor for hours

His family has lodged a complaint with Ontario’s Patient Ombudsman. It’s just one of thousands.

The Patient Ombudsman’s 2023-24 annual report reveals a record 4,429 complaints, the highest since its 2016 inception.

March 13, 2025

by Megan Ogilvie, Health Reporter, and Kenyon Wallace, Business Reporter

Lynn Dekker, with her husband Richard Dekker, described Richard’s experience at St. Catharines’ Marotta Family Hospital as “horrible.” “I felt so helpless because there was nothing I could do,” she said.

When Richard Dekker could no longer bear the pain of sitting in a wheelchair, the 79-year-old cancer patient lay on the floor of the busy emergency department with only his duffel bag for a pillow.

Dekker, who had terminal lung cancer and tumours along his spine, had been scheduled to receive radiation treatment at St. Catharines’ Marotta Family Hospital. But his oncologist postponed the Dec. 4 appointment, instead telling Dekker that he needed to be admitted for a suspected infection.

With no beds available, Dekker waited in the cancer centre until it closed. He was then taken to the crowded emergency department and left to wait in his wheelchair.

Dekker’s wife, Lynn, said she stressed to hospital staff that her husband was unable to sit due to the tumours on his spine. She said her concerns were dismissed — even when she told nursing staff that Dekker was in excruciating pain, had a high fever and had been lying on the floor for close to three hours.

“It was horrible watching him in agony,” said Lynn, who was married to Dekker for 57 years. “I felt so helpless because there was nothing I could do.”

Appalled, Dekker’s family recently lodged a complaint to Ontario’s Patient Ombudsman, joining thousands of others who have expressed their concerns to the provincial organization.

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