“By the time a bed opened, the wound had rotted past saving.”
Something does not make sense.
The article reads she had an open surgical wound for eight days. Was the wound not tended to that whole time? No debridement, no cleaning, no antibiotics? Even without getting stitches all of the above should have been done. If the infection was so deep that normal wound care was not effective stitching the wound would not have prevented infection. My guess is that the patient was diabetic which made it more difficult for the wound to heal.
The article wants you to conclude she died because of the long wait. Given the information I doubt stitching the wound the same day would have made any difference and probably would have made things worse. You want to make sure a infection that is not just on the surface can drain.
The article does not read what she had done (At least the excerpt posted) but I would guess it was a knee replacement. That surgery is not as simple and benign as surgeons and hospitals would have you believe.
There is nothing “free” about Canadian health care and there are good reasons why Canadians cross the border to get healthcare in the U.S. but what happened to Milburn could have happened in a U.S. hospital given the high rate of post surgical infections.
“”The article wants you to conclude she died because of the long wait.””
She didn’t die....