Ladies and gentlemen, the people who run the Canadian health care system:

Losing her first baby was devastating enough but having to do it in a crowded waiting room is what angered Christine Handrahan the most.

The 29-year-old Peakes woman was nine weeks pregnant when on July 12 she started bleeding.

Fearing the worst, Handrahan and her husband, Michael, headed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s new emergency room.

There she waited more than three hours, blood seeping out of her jeans, tears rolling down her face as she feared she was losing her baby — or that she might be bleeding to death.

And now, the people who run our healthcare system:

“It’s emotional. It’s such an emotional time for anybody. We tried for a couple of years to conceive a child and then to lose it. It was horrifying.”

Handrahan says nobody at the hospital showed her any compassion.

“They could have given me a room to go in. Not necessarily a room with a bed. Even if it had been their TV room, or their lunchroom, or their closet. That waiting room was jam packed full of people.”

–snip–

“The sort of things we’re looking at is, was she triaged appropriately?” said Henderson.

“And whether or not she was seen in a reasonable time frame and there are certain guidelines . . . and I won’t pussy foot around it we do have trouble meeting those guidelines at times.”