{"id":2746,"date":"2025-10-24T04:48:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/24\/a-cold-would-kill-me-immunocompromised-man-spends-day-in-saskatoon-hospital-hallway\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T04:48:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:48:02","slug":"a-cold-would-kill-me-immunocompromised-man-spends-day-in-saskatoon-hospital-hallway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/24\/a-cold-would-kill-me-immunocompromised-man-spends-day-in-saskatoon-hospital-hallway\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A cold would kill me\u2019: Immunocompromised man spends day in Saskatoon hospital hallway"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>SaskatoonGuy Pollock of Watrous, Sask., was transported to Saskatoon\u2019s Royal University Hospital to be treated for pneumonia. He spent more than 24 hours in a hallway before being transported to Saskatoon City Hospital.Guy Pollock has COPD and was \u2018almost to the point of panic\u2019Alexander Quon  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Oct 23, 2025 6:56 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesGuy Pollock says he was afraid he\u2019d catch something as an estimated 2,000 people wandered past his bed in the hallway of Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon. (Travis Reddway\/CBC)For more than 24 hours, Guy Pollock lay in a hospital bed in the hallway of Saskatoon\u2019s Royal University Hospital. The 71-year-old estimates more than 2,000 people walked past him as he was treated for pneumonia. Pollock lives with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and is immunocompromised. In an interview on Thursday, he described his experience as traumatizing. \u201cI have been avoiding everybody for the last couple of years because of my lungs, and a cold would kill me,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing stuck in that hallway is just not a place I wanted to be, almost to the point of panic.\u201dPollock, who describes himself as \u201can old farmer,\u201d lives in Watrous, Sask., a town about 90 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon.  On Oct. 15, Pollock felt like he was unable to breathe and called 911. He was initially taken to a hospital in Watrous, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. He was transported to Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon and was admitted into an observation room shortly after arriving at the hospital that afternoon. A few hours later, his bed was taken into a hallway near the emergency room. \u201cI said, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be here,\u2019 and of course [the nurses] are still hoping that I\u2019m going to get a room,\u201d Pollock said. Guy Pollock spoke with Saskatchewan NDP associate health critic Keith Jorgenson at Pollock\u2019s home in Watrous, Sask., on Thursday. (Travis Reddway\/CBC)That never happened and Pollock was left in the hallway for more than 24 hours until he was eventually transferred to a bed at Saskatoon City Hospital. Pollock said he doesn\u2019t blame the health-care workers. He believes they treated him as well as they could. \u201cBelieve it or not, with how horrible the hallway I was in, one nurse told me there are worse hallways in this hospital and I can\u2019t imagine what that would be,\u201d he said. Government respondsOn Thursday, Pollock was visited by the NDP associate health critic Keith Jorgenson, who has been working to raise awareness about the ongoing state of overcrowding in Saskatoon hospitals. The NDP also addressed Pollock\u2019s ordeal during question period in the provincial legislature, putting Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill on the spot. Saskatchewan Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill says he wants everyone in the province to receive the \u2018best possible\u2019 health care. (Kirk Fraser\/CBC)Cockrill admitted he had not yet been able to speak with Pollock but said he empathized with him. \u201cIf that was my family member, if that was my relative, Mr. Speaker, I think we, all in this House and all across the province, Mr. Speaker, we want the best possible health care for the people of this province,\u201d Cockrill said. Cockrill highlighted the government\u2019s decision to put more money toward hospitals in Saskatoon in order to improve patient flow and get patients into rooms as soon as possible. In March, the Saskatchewan Health Authority announced 109 new acute care beds would be added to Saskatoon City Hospital.  Cockrill said 40 of the 109 beds are ready to go as of this week. WATCH | \u2018No dignity\u2019: Sask. man decries mother\u2019s days-long stay in hospital hallway:\u2019No dignity\u2019: Sask. man decries mother\u2019s days-long stay in hospital hallwayTim Lang says after his mother suffered a stroke, she had to spend three days in an emergency room hallway at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon waiting for a bed. The Saskatchewan Health Authority responded after a viral social media video showed patients crowded into hallways.ABOUT THE AUTHORAlexander Quon is the provincial affairs reporter for CBC Saskatchewan. He has been a reporter with CBC Saskatchewan since 2021 and is happy to be working in his hometown of Regina after half a decade in Atlantic Canada. He has previously worked with the CBC News investigative unit in Nova Scotia and Global News in Halifax. Alexander specializes in freedom of information requests and data reporting. He can be reached at: alexander.quon@cbc.ca. FacebookTwitter<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SaskatoonGuy Pollock of Watrous, Sask., was transported to Saskatoon\u2019s Royal University Hospital to be treated for pneumonia. He spent more than 24 hours in a hallway before being transported to Saskatoon City Hospital.Guy Pollock has COPD and was \u2018almost to the point of panic\u2019Alexander Quon \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Oct 23, 2025 6:56 PM [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2747,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,123,1],"tags":[116,122],"class_list":["post-2746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-saskatchewan","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-saskatchewan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}