St. Paul's Hospital Lets Me Down

 

Above is a screenshot of the call I made to St. Paul’s yesterday morning.

(See below)

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December 9, 2025

 

Dr. Francis Maza

Vice President, Mission, Ethics & Spirituality

St. Paul’s Hospital 

1081 Burrard Street

 

Dear Dr. Maza,

I am writing as a patient of St. Paul’s and a person who stutters, to communicate an alarming experience I had on the phone with St. Paul’s staff, and to request your support in remedying this issue moving forward.  

Yesterday, I received a voicemail by a woman on behalf of Dr. Hull, asking me to call to arrange for an appointment. Because I am non-verbal over the phone and live on Gabriola Island, I wanted to arrange for a video chat which is what I do when I have an appointment with Dr. Dorscheid, my asthma doctor also based at St. Paul’s.

I use the Telus Referral Service to make my calls, which enables me to communicate with people who call me with the help of an intermediary. I log into the service online, and I get an assistance operator; my operator yesterday was Nicholas. He reads my message that tells him who I want to call and what I want to ask and/or say. He called the number left in the message: 604-806-8832.

As Nicholas was explaining the Referral Service to the person who answered, the person hung up. Nicholas tried a second time, and again, the person hung up. I have a transcript of the call, which I’ve attached to this email.

On your hospital website, you have a page with a section entitled: “Mission-driven, committed to all who live in BC.” Beneath that heading is this sentence: “Putting in place the right people and plans to address equity, diversity and inclusion issues.” In spite of your stated intent at the hospital, your staff failed me yesterday.

I cannot use a phone. However, I can speak well enough to get my thoughts and questions expressed when I use a video chat service, when I can see the person to whom I am talking. As I said above, I use it to communicate with my asthma doctor, but when I managed, with help, to contact the person who left the message on my answering machine on Monday, she said a video chat was not available for me to talk with Dr. Hull. I will, therefore, require a friend here with me when he calls to help me communicate with the doctor.

St. Paul’s should be more accessible to people with speech disabilities to be true to your mission statement. I am a board member of a disability advocacy organization called SPACE that is based in Vancouver. SPACE runs accessibility workshops to agencies and corporations to provide guidance on serving those with communication disabled people. Were you to sensitize your institution to the challenges stutterers and non-verbal people experience with your staff, it would make your mission statement something I could believe in and firmly get behind. SPACE can help you do that. To visit our website go to www.spacetostutter.org.

I look forward to your reply and hope that it includes an invitation to bring a Listening/ Communication Accessibility Workshop to St. Paul’s. 

To arrange for a workshop, contact Aidan Sank at (address removed).

 

Sincerely

Chris Loranger

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As a result of this experience, I suggested to Aidan that SPACE have a “Complaint Department” so people like me who have experiences like I did yesterday, can inform SPACE and we can follow up as we did today with St. Paul’s. This is advocacy in action, calling out places that claim to be accessible, but aren’t.

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Her Highness and I walked twice yesterday, and the rest of the day was spent on fallout from my experience with St. Paul’s. I was blind angry. But the evening was relaxing and cozy. It was just what I needed. I watched Superman. I was trying to capture the joy I felt attending a movie with epic effects and scenery when I was a child. It didn’t work. The movie is stupid, but I could look at David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult all day every day.

Financial Planning for SPACE

Monday morning, we walked in the rain with our friends. I was very glad that we had a long because after we got home, we chilled for a while, and then I fed the brood and left them at home. I went to the Surf to have lunch with Kelly who’s back on Gabriola doing work on her brother’s house. She and her sister plan to sell it in the Summer.

I raced home. Honestly, I was speeding where it was safe because I was dying to get back to Sheba. My separation anxiety is just as strong as hers; she went ballistic when I got home and it thrilled me.

All afternoon was spent working on a document to serve as the basis for a discussion about operational fundraising for SPACE. We plan to have a planning meeting about SPACE fundraising soon, and we plan to create a committee to flush out the plan and execute it.

I’m proud of the paper that I have written. This is what I do best. The whole thing is in the conditional tense; I’m advocating nothing, I’m just bringing the organization members attention to challenges and possibilities. The paper is the culmination of a lot of research and quite a bit of chatting with Aidan. I was thrilled with Aidan’s response to my initiative. I get a good feeling knowing that I have done something helpful and practical.

Last in the afternoon, we went for our afternoon walk and it wasn’t raining. When we got home, I had a long chat with Steve on Zoom. I envy him. He lives in a land of eternal sunshine and warm weather. And he’s so active; there are a million things to do every day in L.A., and he can grow the most beautiful and fragrant flowers.

The evening was spent falling asleep while trying to watch television, so I went to bed early and slept deeply all night.

Accidents

Noah Ried is a very talented interpreter of other people’s music. He is also a brilliant songwriter, but most people know him as an actor in Shitt’s Creek. Do yourself a favour and listen to him sing Joni Mitchell’s Case of You. Don’t be distracted by the wigs. He performed this song so the video could be played at a tribute to the amazing Catherine O’Hara, his co-star in Shitt’s Creek. 

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Bitten in the face by a dog happened first; driving off the road into the ditch happened shortly thereafter. What a way to begin My Day!

Sheba and I went for our morning walk in the rain, and as we walked we came upon Janice and her wonderful dog, Vinny. I love Vinny, and he loves me. I can tell. His bite into my nose was not an act of aggression or anger, dogs often nibble at things they are licking, and Vinny had been full of kisses for me when the nip on my nose happened.

Driving home, I noticed that blood was dripping into my lap, and so I was searching in the little compartments between the front seats for some Kleenex, when I suddenly and unknowingly veered off the road. Luckily, I was able to keep moving and momentum got me out of the ditch.

Things got much better after that. For one thing, the rain stopped and the sky brightened. There were even periods of sunshine. I longed for a spa when the weather turned so lovely, but instead I got my book and settled in for some reading after I fed the brood their lunch.

Although it was a day for self-indulgence, I’d been eating to much more every day, that I decided to reduce the amount of food I was eating a little. I am determined not to rebound, but I’d be very surprised if that happened because I am off sweets and that alone will keep my weight down. What I love about eating very small daytime meals, is the joy I feel when I sit down to my evening meal that is a generous one.

I read, but not for long. It was soon lunchtime and so I fed everyone (except me) and the Her Highness and I went to walk the Elder Cedar trail. I leashed her and she is just so, so fine with it. There was no sunshine, but we enjoyed lots of light; there was no chance of rain. Our walk was fabulous. And when I got home, I finished the third Simon Mason book. I loved every one of them. The next one in the series comes out in June and I’ve pre-ordered it.

The evening fit the pattern of almost every evening, except for a spur of the moment Zoom call with Candy. I love Candy. I met her when I was a teacher and she was a student. She is an extremely warm and wonderful woman, and she’s blessed with a spectacular sense of humour. Plus, she’s a talented visual artist.

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This morning at 8:00, I’m Zooming with a new person whom I’ve not met before from SPACE. She is the other person interested in fundraising, so it’ll be good to chat with her. Aidan keeps sending me emails that are introductions to. new people, and I always respond to the new person immediately. Yesterday, Jack, whom I’ve only recently met and who will co-lead with me advocacy for late onset stutterers, sent me an introduction to someone—another late onset stutterer. So, I wrote to him and hope to hear back soon.

An Amazing Photograph

 

        To read about this extraordinary photograph that is not an 

AI generated image, go to this link.

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Our walk was glorious yesterday morning as we walked through the Elder Cedar grove. But it ended badly. Sheba found some more human stool and ate it. It’s the downside of prednisone and off-leash walking. I was so pissed off, I hut her, not hard, on her bum. But I hate doing that. We came home and I wouldn’t let her into the house. I’m desperately hoping that she makes the connection between eating the shit and her punishment.

The vet said that I should walk her on a leash, but neither of us like it. It may, however, be the only way to keep her from eating feces. It’s dangerous for her health, it’s disgusting for her breath, and its more calories when I am trying to help her lose weight. It was such a disappointment to have to be leaving her outside, so I went shopping and left her in the house alone. On my way home, I was speeding because I hate being apart from her. Reconciliation began as soon as I got home. Leash walking may be our norm soon.

At 11:00, I Zoomed with Cathy, who lives in Halifax where it was mighty cold. We hadn’t chatted for a while, so we had a great long chinwag with lots of talk about the good ol’ days in the theatre. There’s nothing more fun than talking about assholes we have known.

I read through mid-day, and then, when I wanted to take Sheba for an afternoon walk, I took her to Ricki Ave. to walk where climbing the hill almost killed me. But the good news was how well Sheba and I did, as we walked together with her on the leash. At the end of our walk, I let her off the leash to get a bit of free time where I knew there’s be no human poop.

Our walk was spectacular. The air smelt so sweet and fragrant, I could have spent the rest of the day outdoors, but darkness was descending as it does so early at this time of year, so we soon were back home. I’d discovered in the morning, that burning the large branches that Grayson cut up for me last Spring, burn mighty hot. They heat the house up very quickly.

In the evening, I watched videos of some of the channels to which I subscribe instead of watching a movie. I love watching real people showing us their lives and adventures in clever and compelling videos with no ads, no crappy writing, and no botox or capped teeth. I love YouTube and many of its brilliant content creators.

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It's My Day again. They come so quickly. It’s raining so there’ll be another quiet slow day of reading and walking at Pinecone Park. There may also be baking if my ambition is reignited somehow. Right now, at 7:30, I’m more inclined to spend the day horizontally.