FAMILY PHOTO Enlarge Image

An undated photo of Frances MacKay feeding one of her grandchildren.

David and Lorraine MacKay watched helplessly as their mother suffered excruciating pain for weeks before she was diagnosed — too late — with a serious infection in her spine.

Frances MacKay died last Dec. 15 at the age of 71. She had been suffering from kidney failure for years and received regular dialysis treatment from Seven Oaks General Hospital.

But in November of last year, she began to suffer extreme pain in her lower back and pelvic area. This happened not long after a Nov. 9 appointment in which she had an insert changed that allowed her to have dialysis. After some discussion, a Seven Oaks doctor decided to refer her to the Health Sciences Pain Clinic.

In the meantime, Frances MacKay’s pain was so great that David took her to Seven Oak’s emergency room on Nov. 22.

There, the hospital put her on morphine, stabilized her vital signs and sent her home without attempting to diagnose the problem, her son told reporters today at a news conference at the Legislative Building organized by the Opposition Conservatives.

It wasn’t until the end of November, when her daughter Lorraine took her to St. Boniface General Hospital, that Winnipeg doctors attempted to find out what was causing Frances MacKay’s pain. But by then it was too late. The infection had set in for too long.

"She needed aggressive antibiotic treatments immediately. She waited for months — people die within days when they don’t get appropriate antibiotic treatment," David said.

The woman’s children are also upset that their mother was in so much pain and hospital officials did not seem to take it seriously until she checked into St. Boniface Nov. 29.

But the final insult to the children came when their mother was sent a letter from the pain clinic six months after her referral — and five months after her death — asking her to fill out a questionnaire for an appointment.

"That’s when the irony of this just hit home" and the family decided to speak out, David said. "I just felt that people needed to know that suffering in silence is not going to help."

The Conservatives planned to bring up the case this afternoon during question period at the Manitoba legislature.

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