Eye masks and ear plugs: Pilot project underway as hallway medicine common in B.C. hospitals

Dr. Amir Behboudi, worked with an animator to create a video showing how providing patients in hallways at a B.C. hospital has proven helpful.

A Metro Vancouver hospital has begun offering earplugs and eye masks to patients stuck in hospital hallways and policymakers are now considering doing the same at more sites, CTV News has learned.

The sleep aids are part of a pilot project supported by the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation at the urging of one of the facility’s doctors, who was dismayed to see the discomfort of patients, particularly the elderly.

“(Sleep) is just a basic human need,” explained Dr. Amir Behboudi, who worked with an animator to create a video recreating his epiphany of watching an older woman kept awake by bright lights and persistent noise in a hallway.

He presented the video, which points out “sleep is crucial for recovery” along with a survey that found the majority of patients in hallways had difficulty sleeping. Hospital administrators were supportive of the idea and a latter survey found patients’ sleep improved by 50 per cent.

Easy target for criticism

In April, the Opposition had slammed the health minister for her management of hospitals, claiming one patient had died and another ended up in the ICU after being kept in hallways rather than rooms, where equipment can better monitor their wellbeing.

The pilot project has only provided them with more material to criticize.

“The fact that we’re normalizing it by saying, ‘Let’s get them earplugs and something to cover their eyes,’ that’s a sad state of affairs,” said Anna Kindy, the B.C. Conservatives’ health critic.

“I think you need to try to keep them comfortable, no question, but what we also have to remember is that we have aging demographics, so we’re going to have more and more sick people.”

Kindy wants the government to focus on growing the economy so it can resume stalled hospital and care home projects that have risked worsening the provincial deficit.

The best of a bad situation

Peace Arch Hospital has been struggling to maintain minimal staffing levels, repeatedly turning away White Rock patients going into labour and sending them to other hospitals, and even quietly turned away some patients at the emergency department in 2024.

In an emailed statement, Fraser Health confirmed that the pilot project is “making a meaningful difference” for patients waiting for a bed to become available.

“The project highlights how health-care teams are finding creative, compassionate ways to improve people’s experience,” the statement went on to say. “We plan to explore how these solutions may support people at our other sites.”

Fraser Health is the largest health authority by population in B.C., with more than 2 million residents in its boundaries.

Behboudi knows the healthcare system is complex and expensive and that solving hallways medicine is far beyond his ability, but he’s not deterred.

“Even though it’s not ideal, (I focus on) what can we do to make it better,” he said.