Just weeks after a man died in the waiting room of the Grey Nuns Hospital in southeast Edmonton, there are more signs of a strained health-care system in Alberta’s capital — this time in relation to outpatient treatment.
A Spruce Grove family contacted Global News, claiming their daughter’s plasma transfusion appointments changed locations three times in December after being told the University of Alberta Hospital emergency department overflowed into the outpatient unit.
For the past four years, Cadence Herman has been receiving weekly transfusions to combat her rare disease: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.
“Without it I am very dizzy. Every time I stand up my vision goes dark, my ears ring and I am at risk of passing out and falling over,” Cadence explained.
The illness makes the 18-year-old extremely tired, and she easily gets confused.
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Cadence receives treatments at the medical outpatient unit inside the U of A Hospital — but in December, the unit was hard to find.
“Lately it’s been kind of all over the place,” explained her mother Kyrie Herman.
“Week to week, we don’t know where we go now.”
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Instead of having transfusions near the ambulance bays, as she has consistently since becoming an adult earlier in 2025, Cadence was told she needed to go to the Kaye Clinic — a different building completely, to the west across 114 Street from the main hospital.
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The following week, the family says there was more confusion.
“We show up to her appointment on the 30th and they’re like, ‘It’s not at the University, it’s not at the Kaye Clinic, it actually says you’re supposed to be in the Mazankowski in the basement’,” Kyrie said.
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The Mazankowski is located on the east side of the main U of A Hospital building, near the corner of 112 Street and 83 Avenue.
Cadence went there, only to be turned away.
Her mom recalled the exchange with staff.
“They’re like, ‘Yep, this is our new medical outpatient unit, but your appointment has been cancelled. We don’t know why. We can’t tell you why or who cancelled it.’”
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Staff weren’t able to accommodate her. For Cadence, missing the transfusion means being confined to her bed.
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The family suspects the move was to blame.
“It had never been cancelled before, I’ve never had that issue,” Cadence said.
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The unit relocations have been hard on her.
“I’m already not feeling great by the end of the week. I have to walk through the hospital to multiple departments,” she said.
“It’s very frustrating when your routine is messed up and then you’re going to be late and you don’t know where you are. It’s very confusing and aggravating.”
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In a statement, Alberta Health Services said the province “is seeing an increase in patient demand due to the respiratory virus season, and AHS facilities, especially those in large urban areas, continue to be very busy with high volumes of patients. To help provide additional space, the Medical Outpatient Unit (MOU) at the University of Alberta Hospital has moved to the lower level of the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, commonly referred to as ABACUS.”
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“This is a temporary long-term space for the MOU and no additional moves are anticipated in the near future.”
AHS went on to say it tried its best to notify patients of the changes and apologized for the inconvenience.
The family says it’s more than just inconvenient.
“It’s stressful to be jostled around. Not knowing which building your appointment is going to be in. We might pay for parking at one and find out it’s across the street,” Kyrie explained.
The Hermans said they’re just looking for some consistency in their care and better communication if things change once again.
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